
^.i^^^^sS^ 



iKis?^.-. 








LIBRARY or CONGRESS. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



Southern Student's Hand-Book 



OF 



SELECTIONS 



FOR 



Readingme Oratory. 



BY/ 

JOHN G. JAMES, 

Superintendent Texas Military Institute^ Austin. 






A. S. BARNES &> CO., 

NEW YORK, CHICAGO AND NEW ORLEANS. 
iSyq. 

r 






£^ 



Copyright, 1879. A. S. Barnes & Co. 



CONTENTS, 



Subjt-ct. A uihor. Page 

ANTONIO ORIBONI Margaret J. Preston 27 

AUTUMN IN THE SWANNANOA VALLEY Zebulon B. Vance 42 

AGAINST REPUDIATION B. Puryear 51 

ART AND ITS INFLUENCE Alexander Dimitry 85 

ADDRESS BEFORE EMORY COLLEGE SOCIE- 
TIES Alexander H. Stephens. . .. -«4 

AFTER THE RAIN Mrs. S. R. Allen 126 

ADDRESS TO THE WHITE LEAGUE OF NEW 

ORLEANS J. Dickson Bruns 138 

ADDRESS ON FREEMASONRY V. O. King 183 

EMMONS vs. ARNOLD D. C. Allen 400 

ACCEPTING A GOLD SEAL OF THE STATE OF 

GEORGIA Charles J. Jenkins 48 

ADDRESS TO GEORGIA LEGISLATURE, 1864. . ..Alexander H. Stephens. .. .326 

ALABAMA, TH E Henry Timrod 131 

ARCTIC VOYAGER, THE Henry Timrod 310 

BIBLE, THE J. W. Miles 61 

BALAKL.WA Alexander B. Meek 95 

BURNS' CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 

CHARLESTOWN, 1859 George S. Bryan 153 

BURNING OF THE CAPITOL AT RALEIGH. . .Kemp P. Battle 270 

BENNY Mrs. Chambers Ketchum... 283 

BARGAIN AND SALE R. B. Mayes 340 

BABY POWER Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey 351 

BOSTON LECTURE ON SLAVERY Robert Toombs 390 

BARE OF THE ALAMO, THE Guy M. Bryan 41 

BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD, THE Theodore O'Hara 122 

BAGGAGE SMASHER, THE Southern Magazine 133 

BONNY BROWN HAND, THE Paul H. Haves 208 

BACK LOG, THE .Innes Randolph 322 

BA LL, THE Mrs Mollie E.Mooke DAVis.325 

BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS, THE N. C. Brooks 346 

BAND IN THE PINES, THE John Esten Cooke 370 

BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, THE Sidney Lanier 140 

BLUE ROBBER OF THE PINK MOUNTAIN, THE 317 

CAUSE OF STATE LOYALTY AT THE SOUTH, 

THE William Henry Trescott. .403 

CONFEDERATE DEAD, THE William Preston JoHNSTON.348 

CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA, THE James Barron Hope 388 

CENTENNIAL OF AMERICAN INDEPEND- 
ENCE, THE T. M. Norwood 396 

CAUCASIAN RACE MUST RULE AMERICA, 

THE J. T. Morgan 161 



72- 



iv CONTENTS. 

Subject. A uthor. Page 

CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW Paul H. Hayne 4 

CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY Mrs. M. J. Yourc 56 

CENTENNIAL BILL John Randolph Tuckek. ... 64 

COMMENCEMENT DAY VV. D. Porter 168 

COMANCHE BOY Fanny A. D. Darden 182 

CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN.. . .James H. Hammond 185 

CARCASSONNE John R. Thompson 313 

CHRISTMAS NIGHT OF '62 W. Gordon McCabe 321 

CLAY AND CALHOUN CONTRASTED B. Johnson Barbour 368 

CHANGES WROUGHT BY THE WAR John S. Preston iin 

CONQUERED BANNER, THE Father Ryan 54 

CHRISTIAN RELIGION THE ONLY SURE 

BASIS FOR CIVIL FREEDOM, THE D. J. L. M. Curray 393 

DIFFICULTIES ESSENTIAL TO COMPLETE 

EDUCATION W. M. Grier 279 

DEFENSE BEFORE THE HOUSE OF REPESEN- 

TATIVES Sam Houston 285 

DUTY OF SOUTHERNERS AFTER THE WAR, 

THE Z. B. Vance 175 

DEADOF MOBILE, THE W. T.Walthall 229 

DREAM OF THE SOUTH WIND, THE Paul H. Hayne 291 

DUTY LOUISIANA OWES TO THE COLORED 

RACE, THE R. M. Lushier 76 

DEATH OF MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE E. 

PICKETT, THE Robert Stiles 78 

DEATH OF PLINY THE ELDER, THE William H. Taylor 163 

-DUTY OF THE HOUR, THE A. H. Stephens 159 

EAST TENNESSEE L. C. Haynes 30 

EVERY YEAR Albert Pike 46 

ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL R. Q. Mills 68 

EX PARTE RODRIGUEZ A. W. Terrall 148 

EULOGY ON JOHN C. CALHOUN - James W. Miles 250 

EULOGIUM ON ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON. .Jefferson Davis. 263 

ESSENTIALS OF TRUE REPUBLICAN GOV- 
ERNMENTS, THE Alexander H. Stephens. .. .116 

FRANCIS MARION J. P. K. Bryan 75 

FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON, THE. . .Moses D. Hodge 171 

FAWN, THE James Maurice Thompson. ..345 

FEDERAL DESPOTISM IN MARYLAND Henry May 366 

FEDERAL PROTECTION ON THE RIO GRANDE D. B. Culberson 371 

FLORENCE VANE Philip Pendleton Cooke. . 374 

FITZ LEE W. H. Payne 24 

FUTURE OF THE RESTORED UNION, THE,... F. W. M. Holliday 338 

GEORGIA LEADERS AFTER THE WAR, THE..R. M. Johnston loi 

GONE FORWARD Margaret J. Preston 105 

GEORGIA Henry R. Jackson 128 

GOING OUT .A.ND COMING IN Mollie E. Moore Davis. ... 174 

GARRET, THE John R. Thompson 180 

GEORGI.A. VOLUNTEER, A Mrs MaryAshleyTownsend 216 

GREAT VIRGINIAN, THE S. T. Wallis 2,3 



CONTENTS. V 

Subject. A utkor. Page 

GRAY NORTHER OF TEXAS. THE Mrs. Marv Bavard Cl.\rke.33i 

GENERAL JAMES JOHNSTON PETTIGREW. . .William Henry Trescoit..337 
GENERAL LEES FAREWELL TO HIS COM- 

>L\ND R. E. Lee, General 82 

GREENMOUNT CEMETERY G.W. Archer 260 

HEART'S CONTENT G.Herbert Sass 63 

HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINL\N George W. Bagley 119 

HABIT OF READING. AND THE LOVE OF 

GOOD BOOKS. THE Tho.m.\s R. Price 134 

HAND-WASHING MAGISTRATES Stl.\rt Robinson 156 

HYMN OF THE ALAMO R. M. Potter 202 

HISTORIC RECORD OF NORTH CAROLINA, 

THE J. M. Leach 306 

HONORS TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE PEA- 
BODY S. Te.\ckle W.allis 328 

HOMAGE TO THE DEAD OF KENTUCKY- 
JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE Albert Pike 103 

HERO OF THE COMMUNE M.\rg.\ret J. Preston 354 

INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON'S EXAMPLE 

UPON LEE T. M. Log.^n 146 

IN FAVOR OF PEACE AND RECOGNITION. . Henry M.\y 253 

INAUGURATION OF STONEWALL JACKSON'S 

STATUE J.\.MEs L. Kemper 294 

I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS 

AND PINE Samuel Henry Dickwn 389 

IDEA OF A SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY DE- 
LUSIVE, THE J. Morrison Harris 99 

IS A TURTLE A FISH Alex-^vn-ber Hl-nter 235 

JOAN OF ARC AND THE TAX ON DOMREMY.John Dimitry 280 

JOHN PELHAM j^„^ r. r.^vdai;l. ■.■;.■ .".■.■.■. "301 

KENTUCKY George W. Ranck 303 

^^^'^r^" >IE>IORIES.THE Alexanbhr H.Stephens... x 

LET US END SECTION.AL STRIFE M..tt. W. R..nsom 66 

t'-^'J-'^'^L''''^'^'^''^'™'^ W.G.lmore SIMMS xxr 

^^l^JJ^^r.'^^^'^^'^^^ -^^'^ "ER PEOPLE. .R. J. Breckinridge X70 

^ll^L'^'''''^''^^ "^'^ PREJUDICES ALEX..NDER H.STEPHEXS...2 5 

LETTER TO JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE R.J. Breckinribge 28^ 

LOOKING FOR THE FAIRIES Miss Jllia B..cov 305 

LITTLE GIFFIN... tt r> t ^ 

TnVP F.O.TlCKNOR 365 

^Zlr John S. Holt 382 

\Z^.^ Z?^"^ ^""^ "^"^ FUTURE H. A. M. Henoerso.v 399 

LEGISLATIVE INSTRUCTIONS OFFICIAL 

DUTY T o n T 

, .,.„ L. O. C. La.m.\r X42 

LAND OF THE SOUTH A. B. Meek 273 

MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. THE.. C S West 22 

MATURNUS .\DDRESS TO HIS B.\ND Edw..rd Spencer .' 70 

MY MOTHER'S GRAVE A. W. M.vnglm X45 

MATT. F. WARDS TRIAL FOR MURDER John J. Crittenden X78 

MEMORIAL ADDRESS W.^e Hampton 220 



VI CONTENTS. 

Suhject. A uthor. Page 

MOTHER AND CHILD, THE N. C. Brooks 224 

MUSIC IN CAMP John R. Thompson 256 

M Y CASTLE S. Newton Berrvhill 280 

MATURNUS BEFORE THE EMPEROR COM- 

MODUS Edward Spencer 307 

MOUNTAIN SCENERY OF NORTH CAROLINA.Zebulon B. Vance 222 

MODERN KNIGHT, THE Sidney Lanier 325 

NO SAFETY FOR ANY PEOPLE IN ARBI- 
TRARY POWER Severn Teackle Wallis. .315 

ON THE BILL TO REPAVE PENNSYLVANIA 

AVENUE J. Proctor Knott 94 

ON THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAIL- 
ROAD BILL J. Pkoctor Knott 197 

ON THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAIL- 
ROAD BILL (Continued) J. Proctor Knott 200 

ON ELOQUENCE William C. Preston 228 

O'HARA'S BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD G. W. Ranck 242 

OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE, THE W. C. Richardson 249 

OLD AGE AND DEATH Albert Pike 271 

OREGON QUESTION, THE Jefferson D.wis 330 

OUR DUTY AS PATRIOTS T. B. Kingsbury 344 

OUR LANGUAGE M. Schele De Vere 349 

OLD CANOE, THE Anonymous 81 

ORATION AT THE FUNERAL OF JOHN A. 

WHARTON David G. Burnett 318 

OLD FIELD SCHOOL, THE F. R. Farrar 342 

OLD PIONEER, THE Anonymous 376 

OLD DOMINION, THE ....W. C. P. Breckinridge 203 

PINEVILLE BALL.A F. A. Porcher 57 

PROTEST AGAINST MODERN MATERIALISM. T. D. AVitherspoon 107 

PRESENT CRISIS AND ITS ISSUES, THE B. M. Palmer ' 210 

PLANTATION LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA... William J. Grayson 213 

PROFESSORS AND BOOKS W. D Porter 252 

PROSPERITY OF THE UNION UNDER VIR- 
GINIA'S INFLUENCE R. M. T. Hunter 278 

PRINCE OF SPLENDOR, THE Mrs. A. M. Holbrook 316 

FLEA FOR HONORABLE PEACE, A T. G. C. Davis 165 

POWER OF PRAYER; OR THE FIRST STEAM- 
BOAT UP THE ALABAMA, THE Sidney andClifford Lanier 355 

PROSECUTION OF SANTANTA AND BIG 

TREE S. W. T. Lanham 274 

ROBERT E. LEE John Janney 3 

RICHARD HENRY LEE MOVES THE RESO- 
LUTION OF INDEPENDENCE William Wirt Henry 37 

RE-UNION OF VIRGINIA DIVISION ARMY OF 

NORTHERN VIRGINIA W. Gordon McCabe 39 

RECOLLECTION OF HIS YOUTH, A Linton Stephens 378 

REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES SENATE TO 

THE NEW HALL John C. Breckinridge 114 

RED MEN OF ALABAMA, THE.... A. B. Meek 144 



CONTENTS. vii 

Subject. A uthor. Page 

RED OLD HILLS OF GEORGL\, THE Henry R.Jackson i66 

RESULT OF HIGHER EDUCATION, THE H. A. M. Henderson 176 

RELIEF FOR THE SUFFERING POOR OF IRE- 
LAND John J. Crittenden 258 

RESISTING PROBATE OF THE WILL OF HES- 
TER GOLDSMITH, UPON THE GROUNDS 
OF INSANITY Henrv R. Jackson 293 

RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE THE LIFE OF THE 

NATION, THE W. Archer Cocke 304 

RIP VAN WINKLE F. R. Farrar 311 

RELIGION NECESSARY TO GREATNESS OF 

CHARACTER Whitefoord Smith 372 

REPEAL OF THE TENNESSEE DOG LAW Lee Head 18 

ROBERT E. LEE THETEACHER OF SOUTHERN 

YOUTH T. M. Jack 60 

READY FOR DUTY Southern Magazine 265 

RE-INTERMENT OF THE CAROLINA DEAD 

FROM GETTYSBURG John L. Girardeau 358 

SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION, THE E. H. Hill 9 

SOUTH ACCEPTS THE RESULT IN GOOD 

FAITH, THE W. C. P. Breckinridge 20 

SPRING Henry Timrod 34 

SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION John B. Gordon 49 

SOUTH IS RISING UP, THE John W. Daniel 73 

SOUTHERN VIEW OF SLAVERY James P. Holcombe 87 

SURREY'S DREAM John Esten Cooke. 117 

SOLID SOUTH, THE Samuel McGowan 125 

SOUTH CAROLINA'S LOVE FOR CONSTITU- 
TIONAL LIBERTY Robert \. Hayne 155 

SOUTH CLAIMS ITS RIGHTS UNDER THE CON- 
STITUTION, THE J. F. H. Claiborne 268 

SATANTA'S DEFENSE 277 

SOUTH CAROLINA SPORTS-A BEAR HUNT AT 

CHEE-H A WiLLi.\M Elliot 359 

SOUTH FAITHFUL TO HER DUTIES, THE Matt. W.Ransom 404 

SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION Linton Stephens 8 

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE 

GREEKS Lawrence M. Keitt 12 

SHAKESPEARE George S. Bryan 13 

STATE OF THE UNION, THE A.J. Hamilton 89 

SEAW'EEDS Annie Chambers Ketchum..i5i 

SUNSET CITY, THE Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey. 159 

SINKING OF THE MONITOR MILWAUKEE BY 

A TORPEDO Will Wallace Harney 191 

SHADE OF THE TREES, THE Marg.iret J. Preston 597 

SOUTHERN CHIVALRY Matt. W. Ransom 298 

SOUTHERN SOCIETY AND DOMESTIC SLA- 
VERY Robert Toombs 333 

SENTIMENTS OF THE SOUTH IN i860, THE J. F. H. Claiborne 398 

SLAVES OF MADISON AT HIS GRAVE, THE. .. .James Barbour 53 

SALLY JONES W. T. G. Weaver 143 

SOLILOQUY OF COLUMBUS Sidney Lanier 189 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Subject. Author. Page 

STARS AND STRIPES, THE B. H. Hill 244 

SOUTH ACCEPTS THE SITUATION, THE L. Q. C. Lamar 380 

SENSE OFTHE BEAUTIFUL, THE W. Gilmore Simms 193 

SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION Linton Stephens 207 

SUSAN GARTH WAITE'S WEDDING-DAY John S. Holt 211 

THRIFTLESS FARMER, THE Sidney Lanier 15 

TEMPERANCE PLEDGE, THE Thomas F. Marshall 44 

TERRITORIES COMMON PROPERTY OF THE 

PEOP LE Robert Toombs 106 

TEST OF A TRUE GENTLEMAN, THE Robert E. Lee 189 

TEXAS CENTENNIAL ORATION R. B. Hubbard 204 

TO THE MOCKING-BIRD Albert Pike 205 

TO TIME, THE OLD TRAVELLER William H. Timrod 219 

TAKING LEAVE OF THE SENATE Jefferson Davis 231 

TRUE GREATNESS IN A PEOPLE F. W. Pickens 241 

TRUE GREATNESS PERFECTED BY UNMER- 
ITED MISFORTUNES Albert Pike 262 

THERE IS NO CONQUEROR BUT GOD John W. Daniel 267 

TEXAS BESTOWED ON THE PRINCE OF PEACE. Ashbel Smith 387 

TINTORETTO'S LAST PAINTING Margaret J. Preston 394 

TRIBUTE TO VIRGINIA Matt. W. Ransom 100 

UNITY OF TEXAS, THE Guy M. Bryan 287 

VIVE LA FRANCE "Christian Reid" (Miss 

Frances Fisher) 136 

VINDICATION OF THE RECONSTRUCTED 

SOUTH ...• John B. Gordon 226 

VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY F. O. Ticknor 230 

VETO OF INTERNATIONAL R. R. BILL Richard Coke 391 

VINDICATION OF THE ARMY Robert Stiles 375 

VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION IN THE GOOD 

OLD DAYS, A John Esten Cooke 31 

WASHINGTON THE ARTIFICER OF HIS OWN 

CHARACTER W. D. Porter 109 

WE WILL STAND OR FALL WITH CAROLIN A. Robert Y. Hayne 264 

YOUNG WIDOW, THE Robert Josselyn , . . . 90 



INDEX TO AUTHORS. 



ALABAMA. 

Meek, A. B 95, 144. 273 

Morgan, J. T 161 

Richardson, W. C 249 

Ryan, Father 54 

Walthall, W. T 299 

ARKANSAS. 
Allen, Mrs. S. R 46, 1 26 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
Pike, Albert.. .103, 205, 262, 271 

FLORIDA. 

Cocke, \V. A 304 

Harney, W.W iqi 

GEORGIA. 

Gordon, J. B 49, 226 

Hayne, Paul H. . .4, 208, 291, 407 

Hill, B. H 9,244 

Jackson, H. R......128, 166,293 

Jenkins, C. J 48 

Norwood, T. M 396 

Randall, J. R 301 

Stephens, A. H., i ^' 92, 116 
) 159, 215, 326 

Stephens, Linton 8, 207, 378 

Thompso.n, J. M 345 

TicKNOR. F. O 230, 365 

Toombs, R 106, 333, 390 

KENTUCKY. 

Breckinridge, J. C 1 14 

Breckinridge, R. J 170, 283 

Breckinridge, W. C. P. . . .20, 203 
Crittenden, J. J 178, 258 



Henderson, H. A. M ... .176, 399 
Jeffrey, Mrs. Rosa V...159, 351 
Knott, J. Proctor. . .94, 197, 200 

Marshall, T. F 44 

O'Hara, Theo 122 

Ranck, G. W 242, 303 

Robinson, Stuart 156 

LOUISIANA. 

Bruns, J. D 138 

Dimitry, a 85 

DiMITRY, J 289 

Lusher, R. M 76 

Palmer, B. M 210 

Townsend, Mrs. M. A 216 

MARYLAND. 

Archer, G. W 260 

Brooks, N. C 234, 346 

Harris, J. M 99 

Johnston, R. M loi 

Lanier, S..15, 189, 240, 325, 355 

May, Henry 253, 366 

Spencer, E 70, 307 

Wallis, S. T 223, 315, 328 

MISSISSIPPI. 

Berryhill, S. N 280 

Claiborne, J. F. H 268, 398 

Davis, Jefferson 231, 263 

Holt, J. S 211, 382 

Lamar, L. Q. C 142, 380 

Mayes, R. B 340 

MISSOURI. 

Allen, D. C 400 

Davis, T. G. C 165 

ix 



X 



INDEX TO AUTHORS. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 

Battle, K. P 270 

Clarke, Mrs. M. B 330 

Fisher, Miss F 136 

Kingsbury, T. B 344 

Leach, J. M 306 

Mangum, a. W 145 

Ransom, M. W. . .66, 100, 298, 404 
Vance, Z. B 42, i75. 222 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Bryan, Geo. S 13, i53 

Bryan, J. P. K 75. 240 

Crofts, W 84 

Dickson, S. H 389 

Elliott, William 359 

Girardeau, J. L 358 

Grayson, W. J 213 

Grier, W. M 279 

Hammond, J. H 185 

Hampton, Wade 220 

Hayne, R. Y 155, 264 

Keitt, L. M 12 

McGowAN, S 125 

Miles, J. W 61, 250 

Pickens, F W 241 

Preston, J. S 127 

Preston, W. C •. , 228 

Porcher, F. A 57 

Porter, W. D 109, 168, 252 

Sass, G. H 63 

SiMMS, W. G Ill, 193 

Smith, W 372 

Timrod, H 34, 131, 247, 310 

TiMROD, W. H 219 

Trescot, W. H 337, 403 

TENNESSEE. 

Haynes, L. C 30 

Head, Lee 18 

Ketchum, Mrs. A. C 151, 283 

TEXAS. 
Bryan, G. M 41,287 



Burnet, D. G 318 

Coke, R 391 

Culberson, D. B 371 

Darden, Mrs. F. A. D 182 

Davis, Mrs. M. E. M 174, 333 

Hamilton, A. J 89 

Houston, Sam 285 

Hubbard, R. B 204 

Jack, T. M 60 

Josselyn, R 90 

King, V. O. . . ; 183 

Lanham, S. W. T 274 

Mills, R. Q. 68 

Potter, R. M 202 

Satanta 277 

Smith, Ashbel 387 

Terrell, A. W 148 

Weaver, W. G. T... 143 

West, C. S 22. 

Young, Mrs. M. J 56 

VIRGINIA. 

Bagby, G. W 119 

Barbour, Jas 53 

Barbour, B. J 368 

Bledsoe, A. T 195 

Cooke, J. Esten 31, 117, 370 

Cooke, P. P 374 

Curry, J. L. M 393 

Daniel, J. W • 72, 267 

De Vere, M. Schele 349 

Farrar, F. R 311, 342 

Holliday, F. W. M 338 

Hunter, R. M. T 278 

Hunter, A 235 

Hoge, Moses D 171 

Holcombe, J. P 87 

Henry, W.W 37 

Hope, J. B 383 

Janney, John 3 

Johnston, W. P 348 

Kemper, James L 294 

Lee, R. E 82, 189 

Logan, T. M 34. 146 



INDEX TO AUTHORS. 



XI 



VIRGINIA. 

McCabe, W. G 39, 321 

Payne, W. H 24 

Preston, Mrs.M. T. \ ^^' ^°^' ^^^' 
•* i 354, 394 

Price, T. R 134 

PuRYEAR, B 51 

Randolph, Innes 322 



Stiles, R 78, 375 

Taylor, W. H 163 

Thompson, Jno. R...180, 256, 313 

Tucker, J. R 64 

WiTHERSPOON, T. U. 107 

WEST VIRGINIA. 
Lucas, D. B 234 



SOUTHERN SELECTIONS 

FOR 

READING AND ORATORY. 



"THE LAND OF MEMORIES." 

IF the worst is to befall us; if our most serious apprehen- 
sions and gloomiest forebodings as to the future are to be 
realized; if Centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire 
system of free Institutions, as established by our common an- 
cestors, is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established 
in their stead; if that is to be the last scene in the great tragic 
drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the 
South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but 
by the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so ter- 
rible a catastrophe, and from all the guilt of so great a crime 
against humanity! Amidst our own ruins, bereft of fortunes 
and estates, as well as Liberty, with nothing remaining to us 
but a good name, and a Public Character unsullied and untar- 
nished, we will, in the common misfortunes, still cling in our 
affections to "The Land of Memories," and find expression 
for our sentiments when surveying the past, as well as of our 
distant hopes when looking to the future, in the grand words 
of Father Ryan, one of our most eminent Divines, and one of 
America's best poets: 

"A land without ruins is a land without memories — a land 
without memories is a land without liberty! A land that wears 
a laurel crown may be fair to see, but twine a few sad cypress 
leaves around the brow of any land, and be that land beautiless 
and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow, 
and it wins the sympathy of the heart and history! Crowns of 

I 



2 READING AND ORATORY. 

roses fade — crowns of thorns endure! Calvaries and crucifixes 
take deepest hold of humanity, the triumphs of Might are tran- 
sient, they pass away and are forgotten — the sufferings of Right 
are graven deepest on the chronicles of nations ! 

"Yes! give me a land where the ruins are spread, 
And the Hving tread hght on the hearts of the dead; 
Yes, give me a land that is blest by the dust. 
And bright with the deeds of the down-trodden just! 
Yes, give me the land that hath legend and lays 
Enshrining the memories of long-vanished days ; 
Yes, give me a land that hath story and song, 
To tell of the strife of the Right with the Wrong; ^ 
Yes, give me the land with a grave in each spot, 
And names in the graves that shall not be forgot! 
Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb. 
There's a grandeur in graves — there's a glory in gloom! 
For out of the gloom future brightness is bom, 
As after the night looms the sunrise of morn ; 
And the graves of the dead, with the grass overgrown, 
May yet form the footstool of Liberty's throne ; 
And each single wreck in the war-path of Might 
Shall yet be a 7-ock in the Temple of Right!" 

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 

Alexander Hamilton Stephens was born in Taliaferro Co., Ga., February ii, 1812. 
He was left an orphan at a very early age, but with the assistance of friends, and a 
small patrimony, was well educated, graduating at the University of Georgia in 1832. 
He taught school eighteen months, and was admitted to the bar in 1834, and soon dis- 
played such talent and ability that in 1836 he was elected to the Legislature, in which 
he served— in House and Senate— until 1843, when he was elected to Congress by the 
Whig party. He advocated the admission of Texas in 1845 ; took part in the exciting 
Kansas and Nebraska debates of 1854 ; and in 1859 retired to private life, declining a re- 
election. From this retirement he was soon called, by the voice of his people, to discuss 
the grave questions which then agitated the country. He took active part against 
secession, which he did not believe to be a remedy for existing evils, though a right 
belonging to Sovereign States, and in the Georgia Convention of 1861 he voted agamst 
the Ordinance of Secession. Some of the ablest and most eloquent efforts of his life 
were in behalf of union and peace. But secession once accomplished, he went with 
his State, and prepared to share the destinies of her people. He was elected a delegate 
to the Montgomery Convention, assisted there in organizing the Confederate Congress, 
and was unanimously elected provisional Vice-President of the Confederacy ; and 
under the permanent constitution was elected by the people to the same position 
for a term of six years. In 1865 he was one of the commissioners to the famous Hamp- 
ton Roads Conference. After the fall of the Confederacy, he was arrested by the Fed- 
eral Government and confined in Fort Warren for five months, when he was released 
without trial He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1866, but was not permitted to take 
his seat ; after the reconstruction of Georgia, he was elected to Congress and has been, 
a member of that body ever since. ; 

In person Mr. Stephens is very thin and frail, but in intellect and moral excellence he 



ROBERT E. LEE. 3 

combines masculine strength and power with feminme gentleness and purity. Nothnig 
is more remarkable in his history than the independence with which he has steadily 
pursued his own way in the choice or conduct of public measures. He has sometimes 
acted with one party, sometimes with another, as they conformed to his views of right ; 
but in spite of party and in indifference to it, he has always been ab'e bv the grandeur 
and goodness of his character to carry with him his own people and secure tiieir ap- 
proval and generally to demonstrate the justness of his positions. Harassed by sick- 
ness and often withdrawn by 1; for months at a time from his work, he yet stands to- 
day in the front rank of American statesmen and orators. 

His published works are School History 0/ the United States and A Constitutional 
View 0/ the War betxvcen the States (2 volumes.) 



ROBERT E. LEE 
INVESTED WITH THE COMMAND OF VIRGINIA'S FORCES. 

MAJOR-GENERAL LEE,— In the name of the people 
of your native State here represented, I bid you a cor- 
dial and heartfelt welcome to this hall, in which we may almost 
yet hear the echo of the voices of the statesmen, the soldiers, 
and sages of bygone days, who have borne your name, and 
whose blood now flows in your veins. 

We met in the month of February last, charged with the 
solemn duty of protecting the rights, the honor, and the inter- 
ests of the people of this Commonwealth. We differed for a 
time as to the best means for accomplishing that object ; but 
there never was, at any moment, a shade of difference among 
us as to the great object itself. 

When the necessity became apparent of having a leader for 
our forces, all hearts and eyes, by the impulse of an instinct 
which is a surer guide than reason itself, turned to the old 
county of Westmoreland. We knew how prolific she had been, 
in other days, of heroes and statesmen. We knew she had 
given birth to the Father of his Country, to Richard Henry 
Lee, to Monroe, and last though not least, to your own gallant 
father; and we knew well by your deeds, that her productive 
power was not yet exhausted. 

Sir, we watched with the most profound and intense interest 
the triumphant march of the army led by General Scott, to 



4 READING AND ORATORY. 

which you were attached, from Vera Cruz to the Capital of 
Mexico. We read of the sanguinary conflicts and the blood- 
stained fields, in all of which victory perched upon our own 
banners. We knew of the unfading lustre that was shed upon 
the American name by that campaign, and we knew, also, what 
your modesty has always disclaimed, that no small share of the 
glory of those achievements was due to your valor and your 
military genius. 

Sir, one of the proudest recollections of my life will be the 
honor that I yesterday had of submitting to this body confirma- 
tion of the nomination made by the Governor of this State, of 
you as Commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of 
the Commonwealth. I rose to put the question, and when I 
asked if this body should advise and consent to that appoint- 
ment, there rushed from the hearts to the tongues of all the 
members, an a>fhrmative response, told with an emphasis that 
could leave no doubt of the feeling whence it emanated. 
I put the negative of the question, for form's sake, but there 
was an unbroken silence. 

Sir, we have, by this unanimous vote, expressed our convic- 
tions that you are at this day among the living citizens of Vir- 
ginia, "first in war." We pray to God most fervently that you 
may so conduct the operations committed to your charge, that 
it will soon be said of you, that you are "first in peace" ; and 
when that time comes, you will have earned the still prouder 
distinction of being "first in the hearts of your countrymen." 

JOHN JANNEY. 



CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW. 

ONE morn, hard by a slumberous streamlet's wave, 
The plane-trees stirless in the unbreathing calm, 
And all the lush-red roses drooped in dream, 
Lay King Cambyses, idle as a cloud 
That waits the wind, — aimless of thought and will, — 
But with vague evil, like the lightning's bolt 



CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW. I 

Ere yet the electric death be forged to smite, 
Seething at heart. His courtiers ringed him round, 
Whereof was one who to his comrades' ears, 
With bated breath and wonder-arched brows, 
Extolled a certain Bactrian's matchless skill 
Displayed in bow-craft: at whose marvellous feats, 
Eagerly vaunted, the King's soul grew hot 
With envy, for himself erewhile had been 
Rated the mightiest archer in his realm. 

Slowly he rose, and pointing southward, said, 

' See'st thou, Prexaspes, yonder slender palm, 
A mere wan shadow quivering in the light, 
Topped by a ghostly leaf-crown ? Prithee, now. 
Can this, thy famous Bactrian, standing here. 
Cleave with his shaft a hand's-breadth marked thereon ? ' 
To which Prexaspes answered, " Nay, my lord ; 
I spake of feats compassed by mortal skill, 
Not of gods' prowess." Unto whom, the king : — 

** And if myself, Prexaspes, made essay, 
Think'st thou, wise counsellor, I too should fail ? " 

'Needs must I, sire," — albeit the courtier's voice 
Trembled, and some dark prescience bade him pause, — 

" Needs must I hold such cunning more than man's ; 
And for the rest, I pray thy pardon. King, 
But yester-eve, amid the feast and dance. 
Thou tarried'st with the beakers over-long. " 

The thick, wild, treacherous eyebrows of the King, 

That looked a sheltering ambush for ill thoughts 

Waxing to manhood of malignant acts, — 

These treacherous eyebrows, pent-house fashion, closed 

O'er the black orbits of his fiery eyes, — 

Which, clouded thus, but flashed a deadlier gleam 

On all before him : suddenly as fire 

Half-choked and smouldering in its own dense smoke, 

Bursts into roaring radiance and swift flame. 



READING AND ORATORY. 

Touched by keen breaths of Hberating wind, — 
So now Cambyses' eyes a stormy joy 
Stormily filled ; for on Prexaspes' son, 
His first-born son, they lingered, — a fair boy 
(Midmost his fellow-pages flushed with sport), 
Who, in his office of King's cup-bearer, — 
So gracious and so sweet were all his ways, — 
Had even the captious sovereign seemed to please ; 
While for the court, the reckless, revelling court, 
They loved him one and all : 
"Go," said Cambyses now, his voice a niss, 
Poisonous and low, " go, bind my dainty page 
To yonder palm-tree ; bind him fast and sure. 
So that no finger stirreth ; which being done. 
Fetch me, Prexaspes, the Macrobian bow." 

Thus ordered, thus accomplished : — fast they bound 
The innocent child, the while that mammoth bow, 
Brought by the spies from Ethiopian camps, 
Lay in the King's hand ; slowly, sternly up, 
He reared it to the level of his sight. 
Reared, and bent back its oaken massiveness 
Till the vast muscles, tough as grapevines, bulged 
From naked arm and shoulder, and the horns 
Of the fierce weapon groaning, almost met. 
When, with one lowering glance askance at him — 
His doubting Satrap, — the King coolly said, 
" Prexaspes, look, my aim is at the heart ! " 

Then came the sharp twang, and the deadly whirr 
Of the loosed arrow, followed by the dull. 
Drear echo of a bolt that smites its mark; 
And those of keenest vision shook to see 
The fair child fallen forward across his bonds. 
With all his limbs a-quivering. Quoth the King, 
Clapping Prexaspes' shoulder, as in glee, 
" Go thou, and tell me how that shaft hath sped ! " 



CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW. J 

Forward the wretched father, step by step, 

Crept, as one creeps whom black Hadean dreams, 

Visions of fate and fear unutterable. 

Draw, tranced and rigid, towards some definite goal 

Of horror ; thus he went, and thus he saw 

What never in the noontide or the night, 

Awake or sleeping, idle or in toil, 

'Neath the wild forest or the perfumed lamps 

Of palaces, shall leave his stricken sight 

Unblasted, or his spirit purged of woe. 

Prexaspes saw, yet lived * saw, and returned 
Where still environed by his dissolute court, 
Cambyses leaned, half-scornful, on his bow: 
The old man's face was riven and white as death ; 
But making meek obeisance to his King, 
He smiled (ah, such a, smile!) and feebly said, 
"What a7n I, mighty master, what am /, 
That I durst question my lord's strength and skill } 
His arrows are like arrows of the god, 
Egyptian Horus, — and for proof, but now, 
I felt a child's heart Tonce the child was mine. 
'Tis my lord's now, and Death's), all mute and still. 
Pierced by his shaft, and cloven, ye gods! in twain!" 

Then laughed the great King loudly, till his beard 
Quivered, and all his stalwart body shook 
With merriment; but Avhen his mirth was calmed, 
"Thou art forgiven," said he, "forgiven, old man; 
Only when next these Persian dogs shall call 
Cambyses drunkard, rise, Prexaspes, rise! 
And tell them how, and to what purpose, once, — 
Once, on a morn which followed hot and wan 
A night of monstrous revel and debauch, — 
Cambyses bent this huge Macrobian bow." 

PAUL H. HAYNE. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne, the poet,— son of Lieut. H. Haj^ne of the Navy, and nephew 
ol the Hon. Robert V . Hayne,— was born January i, 1830, in Charleston, S C. He 



8 READING AND ORATORY. 

graduated at the College of Charleston, read law, and was admitted to the profession, 
but early abandoned it to devote himself with enthusiasm to a life of letters. For 
twenty-fave years he has patiently striven to cultivate in the South a love of art literature. 
His poetical works embrace: Poems (1854); Sonnets and other Poems (iSs6}\ A votto. a Le- 
gend 0/ the Island of Cos; -with Poems Lyrical^ Miscellaneous, and Dramatic (i860); Le- 
gends and Lyrics (1872); The Mountain 0/ the Lovers^ with Poems of Nature and Tra- 
dition '1875). In 1857-60 he edited RusselPs, a monthly magazine he was instrumental 
in starting at Charleston, which soon failed for want of popular support, though its con- 
tributors were among the ablest men in the South. He has published Biographies of 
Hugh S. Legars^ and Robert Y. Hayne, and in 1872 edited, with a memoir, the collected 
poems of Henry Timrod. His contributions to the magazine and review literature of 
the day would fill many volumes. During the recent war he was for a time on the staff 
of Gov. F. W. Pickens, but chronic ill health compelled his resignation. By the bom- 
bardment of Charleston his house and library were destroyed, and in 1866, to escape 
negro domination, he left his native State and purchased his present country retreat — 
Copse /////— near Augusta, Ga. In delicacy of imagination, sweetness, simplicity, and 
grace of style, melodious movement, purity and elevation of thought, exquisite sensi- 
bility to the manifestaUr)ns of beauty under all its forms, and in sympathetic interpreta- 
tion of Nature, he is not behind any singer in the modern American choir. 



SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. 

THERE has been much said, sir, about issues that are 
"dead" ; surely here is one that is not only alive, but vetj 
lively. Let Americans hear and mark it ! The Constitution of the 
United States can be changed, can be subverted by Presidential 
proclamation ! ! I once knew a man whose motto was that a lie 
well told was better than the truth, because, he said, truth was 
a stubborn, unmanageable thing, but a lie in the hands of a 
genius could be fitted exactly to the exigencies of the case. 
But even he admitted that the lie must be well told, or it would 
not serve. If it should appear to be a lie, it would be turned 
from a thing of power into a thing for contempt. 

There has been progress, sir, since that man taught. It is 
now discovered that a knoimi, proven lie is as good as the truth, 
provided it can only get "proclaimed" by a power having 
''jurisdiction" to proclaim it!! I, sir, know of no person— 
either on the earth, or above it, or under it— that has "juris- 
diction", to "proclaim" Lies ! ! Nay, sir, I know of no power 
which has jurisdiction to proclaim Amendments to the Consti- 
tution ; according to my reading of that instrument, amend- 



THE SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION. 9 

ments constitutionally proposed "shall be valid to all intents 
and purposes as part of the Constitution, when ratified by the 
Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Con- 
ventions of three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode 
of ratification may be proposed by the Congress." The rati- 
fication by three-fourths of the States, acting through their 
Legislatures or their Conventions, sets the seal of validity on 
the amendment and makes it a part of the Constitution. 
Nothing else can do it. It must be a true ratification, by a 
true Legislature, or a true Convention of the State. A false 
ratification by a true Legislature of the State will not do. A 
true ratification by a spurious Legislature will not do. The 
validity of the amendment, and its authority as a part of the 
Constitution, are made to depend upon the historic truth of its 
ratification as required by the Constitution. Proclamations of 
falsehoods from Presidents, or from anybody else, have nothing 
to do with the subject. This is plain doctrine, drawn from the 
Constitution itself. The validity of the Constitution in all its 
parts depends upon the facts of their history. 

But, according to this new discovery, the President of the 
United States can subvert the whole Constitution, and make 
himself a legal and valid autocrat, by simply "proclaiming" 
that an amendment to the Constitution to that effect has been 
proposed by two-thirds of each house of Congress, and rati- 
fied by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States; although 
it may be known of all men that there is not one word of truth 
in the proclamation. The President of the United States can 
legally convert himself into an autocrat by his own procla- 
mation. Theories are quickly put into practice in these days. 

Let the country beware ! ! linton Stephens. 



THE SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION. 

I DO not doubt that I am the bearer of unwelcome messages 
to the gentleman from Maine and his party. He says that 
there are Confederates in this body, and that they are going to 



lO READING AND ORATORY. 

combine with a few from the North for the purpose of controll- 
ing this Government. If one were to listen to the gentlemen on 
the other side he would be in doubt whether they rejoiced 
more when the South left the Union, or regretted most when 
the South came back to the Union that their fathers helped to 
form, and to which they will forever hereafter contribute as 
much of patrotic ardor, of noble devotion, and of willing sacri- 
fice, as the constituents of the gentleman from Maine. 

O, Mr. Speaker, why cannot gentlemen on the other side 
rise to the height of this great argument of patriotism? Is the 
bosom of the country always to be torn with this miserable sec- 
tional debate whenever a presidential election is pending ? To 
that great debate of half a century before secession there were 
left no adjourned questions. The victory of the North was 
absolute, and God knows the submission of the South was com- 
plete. But, sir, we have recovered from the humiliation of de- 
feat, and we come here among you and we ask you to give us 
the greetings accorded to brothers by brothers. We propose 
to join you in every patriotic endeavor, and to unite with you in 
every patriotic aspiration that looks to the benefit, to the ad- 
vancement, and the honor of every part of our common coun- 
try. Let us, gentlemen of all parties, in this centennial year, 
indeed have a jubilee of freedom. We divide with you the 
glories of the Revolution and of the succeeding years of our 
national life before that unhappy division — that four years' 
night of gloom and despair — and so we shall divide with you 
the glories of all the future. 

Sir, my message is this: There are no Confederates in this 
House; there are now no Confederates anywhere; there are no 
Confederate schemes, ambitions, hopes, desires, or purposes 
here. But the South is here, and here she intends to remam 
Go on and pass your qualifying acts, trample upon the Consti- 
tution you have sworn to support, abnegate the pledges of 
your fathers, incite rage upon our people, and multiply your 
infidelities until they shall be like the stars oi heaven or the 
sands of the seashore, without number: but know this, for all 
your iniquities, the South will never again seek a remedy in the 



THE SOUTH ONCE MORE IN THE UNION. II 

madness of another secession. We are here; we are in the 
house of our fathers, our brothers are our companions, and we 
are at home to stay, thank God. 

We come to gratify no revenges, to retaliate no wrongs, to 
resent no past insults, to reopen no strife. We come with a 
patriotic purpose to do whatever in our poUtical power shall 
lie to restore an honest, economical, and constitutional adminis- 
tration of the Government. We come charging upon the Union 
no wrongs to us. The Union never wronged us. The Union 
has been an unmixed blessing to every section, to every State, 
to every man of every color in America. We charge all our 
wrongs upon that "higher law" fanaticism, that never kept a 
pledge nor obeyed a law. 

The South did seek to leave the association of those who, 
she believed, would not keep fidelity to their covenants ; the 
South sought to go to herself ; but, so far from having lost our 
fidelity to the Constitution which our fathers made, when we 
sought to go we hugged that Constitution to our bosoms 
and carried it with us. 

Brave Union men of the North, followers of Webster and 
Fillmore, of Clay, and Cass, and Douglas — you who fought 
for the Union for the sake of the Union ; you who ceased 
to fight when the battle ended and the sword was sheathed 
— we have no quarrel with you, whether republicans or demo- 
crats. We felt your heavy arm in the carnage of battle ; but 
above the roar of the cannon we heard your voice of kindness, 
calling, " Brothers, comeback." And we bear witness to you 
this day that that voice of kindness did more to thin the Con- 
federate ranks and weaken the Confederate arm than did all the 
artillery employed in the struggle. We are here to co-operate 
with you ; to do whatever we can, in spite of all sorrows, to re- 
build the Union; to restore peace; to be a blessing to the country, 
and to make the American Union what our fathers intended it 
to be : the glory of America and a blessing to humanity. 

B. H. HILL. 

Benjamin Harvey Hill, statesman, was born in Jasper Co., Ga., September 14, 1823; 
graduated at the University of Georgia, 1844 ; studied law and commenced practice at 



12 READING AND ORATORY. 

Lagrange, Ga.; was a member of the State House of Representatives in 1847. He was 
a member of the Georgia Convention of 1861 and advocated the Union until the ordi- 
nance of Secession was adopted, then sided with his State, and was a delegate to the 
Confederate Provisional Congress, and subsequently Confederate State Senator. In 
1865 the Federal authorities arrested and imprisoned him in Fort Lafayette. Since the 
war he has been twice elected a member of Congress, and in 1877 was elected U. S. 
Senator. 



SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE 
GREEKS, 

THE student who will take the trouble to examine the records 
of ancient wisdom, will wonder to find how much they con- 
tain of modern invention and discovery. In speculative philoso- 
phy ancient genius exhausted everything; at least, modern times 
have added nothing. In every age there is a universal spirit 
which concentrates and fastens itself upon some particular de- 
partment of intellect, and explores and illustrates it with what- 
ever of energy and enlightenment it may possess. Speculative 
science arrested the Greek mind in its noon of brightness, and 
a succession of splendid intellects, thronging into the 
heavens, till the whole firmament was in a blaze, swept ihe 
broad realm of naked mind, planted flags of discovery on every 
continent and isle, and bravely trod on to the last barrier of 
unaided thought. 

Longinus is the master of Burke. Logic and rhetoric, di- 
gested into sciences or softened down into arts, trace back their 
history to Athens, and antedate the Gospel. Logic, since the 
death of Socrates^ has never owned such a master. This si- 
lenic giant of the market-place wielded a colloquial elenchus 
which clove down and shattered the dogmas and fallacies of 
the sophists, and covered these "corrupters of Athenian youth ' 
with public derision and scorn, but it lies buried in his grave 
The greatest of his own successors and pupils were too weak to 
handle it, and the moderns have shrunk from the effort Soc- 
rates won philosophy from the clouds, made it his companion 
in the market-place, and throwing into it so much ot earth as 
to make it kindred to the mass, infused it into the concerns of 



SHAKSPEARE. 1 3 

everyday life. Dying, he bequeathed his mantle to Plato. Well 
and worthily bestowed was the precious gift. Socrates had 
clothed speculative philosophy in the garments of common life. 
Plato stripped it of its soiled and earthly vestments, and, bear- 
ing it back to the heaven it was born in, bathed it in native ef- 
fulgence and beauty. Chastened and supported by the lessons 
ot his great master, he pursued his eagle flight through the 
broad realms of thought, captured richest spoil from the whole 
circle of learning, and urged on by the strong impulses of 
genius, fanned even the very curtains of revelation with the 
wafture of his wings. It was but a single bound between " This 
to the unknown God," and a knowledge of that God Himself. 
But this bound no mortal could take without divine interposi- 
tion. 

In the lapse of time, Aristotle came to take his place in the 
bright constellation of Grecian genius. Superb in intellect, af- 
fluent in knowledge, finished in scholastic training, and with 
unrivalled powers of analysis and generalization, he swept in 
magnificent convolutions across the intellectual firmament, scat- 
tering on every side light and lustre, beauty and beneficence. 
His school has been corrupted by ignorant sophists and big- 
oted theologians, and mystified by the cunning and multitudi- 
nous distinctions of oriental metaphysics ; but in its original 
simplicity and grandeur — as it came fresh from the hand of the 
Stagyrite — it towers aloft like some proud column in old Rome, 
erect and massive amid surrounding ruins. 

LAWRENCE M. KEITT. 



SHAKSPEARE. 



THE poet thus shut out from the busy world — denied a part, 
or having no proper part, in the great drama of life, like 
Shakspeare — with sympathies wide as creation, and sensibility 
deep as old ocean, and susceptible to all objects of universal 
nature as its watery mirror — becomes its painter and dram- 



14 READING AND ORATORY. 

atist — and reveals the heart of man, for all time, to his fellows. 

In opening his works — the Bible of nature — the eye meets 
his gentle countenance. Open it is and placid as some sum- 
mer's sea, but it bears no painful trace of passion, no deep 
line of thought; it smiles upon us as if its quiet surface had 
never been swept by a storm of feeling, and its tranquil depths 
never agitated by the tumults of emotion. Its smooth mask 
makes no revelation. And when, passing from his portrait, we 
turn over his pages, we seem not to be conversing with an in- 
dividual mind, or to come in contact with an individual char- 
acter. The works of the god are before us, but they are so 
varied, and all so perfect, that they give no sign of their parent. 
The creator of this rich and boundless world is lost in his works; 
we cannot detect him, we cannot trace him. 

We hear the passionate voice of Juliet; the gentle tones of 
Desdemona; the despairing wail of Ophelia; the freezing whis- 
pers of Lady Macbeth; the merry notes of Beatrice; the beguiling 
music of Antony; the savage cries of Shylock; the kindling 
utterances of Marcus Brutus; the jolly laugh of Falstaff; the 
devilish sneer of lago; all voices of man or woman, witch or 
fairy, salute us. But which is the voice of Shakspeare ? Like 
the principle of life, which is everywhere, but nowhere to be 
seen ; which crowds the world with its ten thousand shapes of 
deformity and beauty, of terror, gladness, and glory; yet, is 
itself shrouded in impenetrable darkness, — the mystery of mys- 
teries, — such is Shakspeare amidst his works, — he is everywhere 
and nowhere. 

Mimic and painter of universal nature, he paints all charac- 
ters with equal truth, and seemingly with equal relish. The 
wild and romantic love of Juliet; the saintly tenderness and 
meek devotion of Desdemona ; the ambitious, worldly, licen- 
tious, yet weak and womanly passion of the Egyptian sorceress, 
find equal sympathy. Each has a perfect spell for him, and he 
is the proper soul of each. He bodies forth the sacred love of 
Desdemona, as if he were himself a saint, and had found in 
her a helpmate to his virtue; he decorates the girlish Juliet, he 
lavishes all virgin sweets and glories upon her, as if he were an 



THE THRIFTLESS FARMER. I 5 

ardent, dreaming boy, and she the very mistress of his soul and 
idol of his worship; and Cleopetra, the serpent of old Nile I — 
how does he dote upon her — how does he paint her to the very 
taste of flesh and blood — how does his imagination run riot, 
and teem like another Nile, with all the images of dissolving 
luxury and seductive beauty; and when he contemplates her, 
how like another Antony does he hang upon her, and drink in in- 
toxication from her unchaste eyes! Who of these was, in truth, 
the mistress of Shakspeare's soul? Who shall tell us? For all 
his works disclose, Cleopatra may have had as much of his love 
and approbation as Juliet or Desdemona; and he was perfectly 
indifferent which of the three you might give your heart to, or 
whether you were saint or sinner — Romeo or Antony. He 
was content to paint, and happy alike, if Leonatus or lachimo, 
Othello or lago, were the sitters. 

Which of these you might make the man of your counsel 
and the model of your life, was no concern of his. His sym- 
pathies were so universal that he seemed to have lost entirely 
his own individuality in the character of others, and, like the 
mocking-bird, to have had no song which could be recognized 
as his own. His distinctive self and the processes of his 
thought alike lie hidden in a darkness as profound as the great 
womb of nature itself; and amidst the multitudinous and won- 
drous masquerade which he has, with wizard power, conjured 
up for your amusement, his fortn — the master of this princely 
revel — is not detected, and his face alone among the maskers 
remains forever masked. george s. bryan. 



THE THRIFTLESS FARMER. 

[ From Corn.] 

LOOK, thou substantial spirit of content! 
Across this little vale, thy continent, 
To where, beyond the mouldering mill, 
Yon old deserted Georgian hill 



l6 READING AND ORATORY. 

Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest 
And seamy breast, 
By restless-hearted children left to lie 
Untended there beneath the heedless sky, 
As barbarous folk expose their old to die. 

Upon that generous-rounding side, 
With gullies scarified 
Where keen neglect his lash hath plied, 
Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil, 
And gave to coquette cotton soul and soil. 
Scorning the slow reward of patient grain, 
He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain, 
Then sat him down and waited for the rain. 

He sailed in borrowed ships of usury — 

A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea, 

Seeking the Fleece and finding misery. 

Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance 
He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance 
Should plough for him the stony field of Chance. 

Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell 

He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell, 

And turned each field into a gambler's hell. 
Aye, as each year began. 
My farmer to the neighboring city ran ; 

Passed with a mournful, anxious face 

Into the banker's inner place ; 

Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace ; 

Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass 
Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass ; 
With many an oh and if, and but alas, 

Parried or swallowed searching questions rude. 

And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood. 

At last, small loans by pledges great renewed, 
He issues smiling from the fatal door 
And buys with lavish hand his yearly store. 
Till his small borrowings will yield no more. 



THE THRIFTLESS FARMER. 17 

Aye, as each year declined, 

With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind, 

He mourned his fate unkind. 

In dust, in rain, with might and main, 

He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain. 

Fretted for news that made him fret again. 
Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, 
And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail — 
In hope or fear alike forever pale. 

And thus from year to year, through hope and fear. 

With many a curse and many a secret tear. 

Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, 
At last 
He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, 

And all his best-of-life the easy prey 

Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way 
With vile array. 
From rascal statesman down to petty knave ; 
Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave, 
A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. 

Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, 

He fled away into the oblivious West, 
Unmourned, unblest. 

Old hill ! old hill ! thou gashed and hairy Lear, 

AVhom the divine Cordelia of the year. 

E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer — 
King, that no subject man nor beast may own. 
Discrowned, undaughtered, and alone — 

Yet shall the great God turn thy fate. 

And bring thee back into thy monarch state 
And majesty immaculate. 
Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn 
Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn 
Visions of golden treasuries of corn — 

Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart 

That manfully shall take thy part 



X8 READING AND ORATORY, 

And tend thee, 
And defend thee, 
With antique sinew and with modern art. 

SIDNEY LANIER. 

Sidney Lanier, the poet, is a descendant of a Huguenot family from the South of 
France, whence they tied to England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The 
first ancestor in America, Thomas Lanier, came over with a party of Welshmen and 
others who had obtained a grant of land, embracing the present site of Richmond, Va. 
On the maternal side, he is descended from a Virginia family of Scotch origin, that 
supplied members of the House of Burgesses of that State for more than one generation, 
and was highly gifted in poetry, music, and oratory. Mr. Lanier was born at Macon, 
Ga., February 3, 1842, and graduated at Oglethorpe College; he served in the Confederate 
army as a private, and after the war practised law several years, but his health failing, 
he decided to devote himself exclusively to literature. Corn, The Symphony ., and 
Psalm of the West, which appeared in Lippincotf s Magazine in 1875, — and are his 
longest poems,^at once made his genius known. In 1876 he was chosen by the Com- 
mission to write the text for the Centennial Cantata. Since then he has written much 
for the magazines, but no complete collection of his poems has been published. Lip- 
pincott & Co. issued a little volume in 1876, containing a few of his best. In origi- 
nality of thought and treatment, ideality, and spirituality he is not exceeded — if equalled 
— by any American poet; while his poetry will ever charm the cultivated reader by 
the beauty and novelty of its figures, wide range of metrical and rhythmical effects, 
rare felicity of expression, and artistic finish. 



REPEAL OF THE TENNESSEE DOG LAW. 

NOTHING, ladies and gentlemen, that I have said is in- 
tended to apply in the most remote degree to the last 
Legislature of Tennessee. I would not for one moment have you 
think me so ungrateful, or so unmindful of the welfare of our be- 
loved State, as to cast the slightest reflection upon that noble band 
of patriots, who, for the insignificant sum of four dollars a day, 
devoted three long months of their valuable time and talents to 
legislating for the peace and happiness of the dogs of our Com- 
monwealth. While much has been said against them; while 
they have been assailed and abused by people of all classes and 
from all quarters, yet, in my humble judgment, the members of 
the last General Assembly are entitled to the lasting admiration 
and gratitude of every dog within the limits of the great State 
of Tennessee. And I am proud to know that, while the legisla- 
tures of other States were consuming their time and wasting 



REPEAL OF THE TENNESSEE DOG LAW. 1 9 

the people's money in devising schemes of retrenchment, and in 
adopting measures of relief for their constituents; while even 
the Congress of the United States was frittering away its time 
on the insignificant question of the electoral count; our own 
Legislature had the manhood to throw aside these minor con- 
siderations, and devote their time and attention to the interests 
of our dogs. 

What mattered it whether Tilden or Hayes was declared 
President, or whether in fact we had any President at all, so 
long as our dogs remained under the oppression of the odious 
and infamous dog-law? Or what mattered it whether our debt 
was great or small, whether our taxes were high or low, or 
whether the expenses of our Government were increased or 
diminished, while this important element of our population was 
being hunted from one end of the State to the other, and the poor 
and oppressed dogs of the country were fleeing from the tax- 
gatherer as if from the wrath to come? What would a State be 
without dogs? What is home — what is man — in fact, what is 
life, without a doge* What is more delightful, more fascinating, 
more ennobling than the companionship of a dog? Take him 
in his infancy, even before his little eyes have opened upon the 
beauties of nature: watch him in his innocent childhood, as he 
playfully tears the leg of your pants, or hides your Sunday hat 
under the house; see him in his mature manhood, as he gently 
leads your Berkshire sow up and down the lot by the ear, or 
gallantly chases your favorite milch cow around the barnyard by 
the tail; listen to the melancholy music of his voice, as he sits 
beneath your window, in his old age, and, at the still and 
solemn hour of midnight, constantly bays the moon. If there be 
a man under the sound of my voice to-night, whose bosom does 
not swell with admiration for these noble traits of the canine 
character, that man is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils. 

Had this odious dog-law not been repealed, who can foretell 
the fate which awaited us? Civil and religious liberty would 
have gone glimmering through the gloom of things that were; 
your republican institutions would soon have become a myth 
and a shadow; the voice of the faithful watch-dog would no 



20 READING AND ORATORY. 

longer have been heard in the land; the trail of the raccoon 
and the opossum would have desecrated your highways, and 
the cunning fox would have pillaged your henroosts at noonday. 
But now, with the oppressive law repealed — with the limbs of 
our dogs loosed from the fetters of this infamous measure — 
peace will again reign throughout our land, and our beloved 
State will start upon a march of progress and improvement, 
unsurpassed in the history of any civilized country. 

All honor, then, to the members of the last Legislature for the 
repeal of the dog-tax. It will insure them the prayers and bless- 
ings of a grateful race, while they journey through life, and will 
shed a halo of giory around their declining years. And when 
they are dead, let their epitaph be written, that in life they were 
the champions of canine rights, and that, true to their noble 
instincts, they stood by the interests of the dogs. 

LEE HEAD. 



THE SOUTH ACCEPTS THE RESULT IN GOOD 

FAITH. 

*'"T~^HE South" is dead. The Southern Confederacy is for- 
X ever gone. There is no hope — nay, I own, here in the 
presence of the living and the dead — there is no desire to renew 
a struggle for it. We recognize the utter, irrevocable failure; the 
complete, crushing defeat. We submitted to it without unmanly 
repinings, and with a true determination to do our full part in 
the home we chose as become her citizens. We recognize the 
obligations of allegiance and obedience. We exercise with 
fidelity our rights, and perform with true allegiance our duties 
as citizens. In good faith we accepted the results, and abide 
by the consequences. We keep alive no personal enmities, no 
old antagonisms, no feuds. We know that the destiny of our 
children is enwrapt in that of this mother commonwealth of 
ours and this great imperial republic. Her flag is ours, her 
liberties ours, her glory ours, her shame ours. For us and our 
children's children it must be so. We fret not at it. We take 



THE SOUTH ACCEPTS THE RESULT IN GOOD FAITH. 21 

up the duty of American citizenship, and desire to perform it. 
Aye, we would fain feel the patriotic love for a common coun- 
try, and the sweet interchange of equal fraternity over the great 
republic. 

But we put not our hands over our mouths, and our mouths 
in the dust and cry. " Unclean, unclean ! " We turn not our 
backs on our dead comrades, nor do we cast obloquy upon the 
cause we fought for. Nay, we keep in our hearts an intense 
love for that liberty for which we fought. If God will smile 
upon us, we will have our children, and their country, free. 
We will aid with all our might to preserve from sea to sea, from 
Lakes to Gulf, that freedom of person and State autonomy that 
we fought to maintain from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. 
That liberty is our birthright; our children will have it by in- 
heritance or by conquest. The eternal spirit of liberty is un- 
quenchable and unconquerable. History is but the narrative of 
the struggles of man to be free, and of the conquests of freedom. 
She made Greece glorious and fled from her crimes and fall. She 
gave Rome a world, and survived her shame and lust. She led 
the hosts of the Northmen.and escaped their subsequent conquest. 
Amid the long ages of darkness and doubt, she found a home 
among the fastnesses of the Alps, and the wilds of Scotland. 
She came forth to lead her soldiers to victory in the struggles 
of the forum and amid the carnage of battle. She gave cour- 
age on the scaffold and constancy in the dungeon. She con- 
quered Holland; she regained Britain; she has led France 
through blood; she is struggling in Germany. Her banners 
are high advanced in Italy, and in the mountains of Spain her 
voice rallies to victory. 

In the trackless forests of America she found a home, and 
gave to mankind a Washington, Jefferson, and Henry; a Con- 
stitutional Congress and an American Republic of States. We 
are her children — true to her lineage, and faithful to her high 
behests. For a time in her home outrages may be committed 
and crimes perpetrated, but the result is certain. Stand in our 
places and do our duty as becomes citizens, and we can confi- 
dently trust the result to the future. 



2.-2 READING AND ORATORY. 

The day will come when this great country will recognize the 
wondrous glory of the late war, when the names of our dead 
will be inscribed on the common roll of illustrious sons, — not 
as traitors worthy of death, but sons worthy of love and rever- 
ence. Hampden and Cromwell are dear to every English 
heart, and if from English history every English traitor was 
stricken, the glory of the past would be lost. Our Lee will be 
hereafter what Cromwell is, but more; for to him no crimes 
will be imputed, no unmeasured ambition charged. Our dead 
will be honored and our heroes loved. God speed the day ! I 
want my country to be at true peace; I yearn for a country of 
brothers, where to do right is the whole compulsion — to pre- 
vent wrong the sole restraint; where our Realty is because Ave 
love, and our obedience an act of the heart; where there are 
no discussions about rights, because there is no trespass, and 
no complaints of wrongs, because there is no oppression. 

W. C. p. BRECKINRIDGE. 

William Campdell Preston Breckinridge, LL.D., the second son of Dr. Robert J. 
Breckinridge and Ann Soplionisba Preston (who was a daughter of Gen. Francis Pres- 
ton, of Virginia, and grand-daughter of Gen. William Campbell, who commanded at 
Kings Mountain), was born near Baltimore, Md., August 28, 1837; graduated at Centre 
College, and then in Law Department of University of Louisville. He entered the 
Confederate service as Captain in Gen. John H. Morgan's command, and at the close 
of the war was colonel of the gth Kentucky cavalry, and acting brigader-general in 
Wheeler's corps. Resumed the practice of law, and for two years edited Lexington 
Observer and Reporter. For some years he has been Professor of Law in Kentucky 
University. As scholar, jurist, orator, and debater, he upholds worthily the fame which 
for genera' ions has made his house distinguished, yet he has never been a candidate for 
political office. 



THE MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 

IT has been my purpose to impress upon you the power and 
the value of mental training and education, in a practical 
point of view, as affording the means by which the everyday work 
of life— let it be what it may— can be wisely and profitably done. 
I have told you that in this land all the prizes of this mortal 
life—stars, and ribbons, and decorations, and place, honors, and 
titles— are all within the grasp of him who is thoroughly trained 



THE MORAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 23 

and educated, so as to be able to keep step to the onward prog- 
ress of the age. 

But in placing before you thus prominently these temporary 
advantages to arise from the right cultivation of the intellect, 
do not understand me as teaching that these are the only or 
the noblest objects of mental culture. On the contrary, it has 
far higher aim:,, and nobler purposes ; and I have presented 
the subject to you from its lowest plane, its mere earthly level 
only. It was no part of my plan to discuss it with reference to 
its higher moral aspects, or its relations to eternal things. This 
much it may be proper, however, even for me to add : that 
science in its truest and largest meaning is nothing less than a 
right interpretation of nature, — a comprehension of the work- 
ings of law, wherever law prevails. It matters not whether the 
subjects are stones or stars, human souls or the complications 
of social relations, that most perfect knowledge of each which 
reveals its uniformities constitutes its special science ; and that 
comprehensive view of the relations which each sustains to all 
in the universal system realizes the broadest import of the con- 
ception. Science is, therefore, said to be the revelation to 
reason of the policy by which God administers the affairs of 
the world. 

The careful student of Nature's purposes will necessarily be 
averse, then, to leading a life without a purpose. Watching 
the evidences of design in everything around him, he cannot 
fail to reflect on the object of his own creation. And doing 
so, if his mind were imbued with the knowledge of the mutual 
fitness in which all the members of his body and all the parts 
of the whole organic world subsist and minister to each other's 
good, he could not conclude that he exists for his own sake 
alone ; or that happiness would be found separate from the 
offices of mutual help, and oi universal good-will. One who 
has become daily conversant with things that have a purpose 
in the future higher than that which they have yet fulfilled, 
would never think that his own highest destiny is yet achieved. 
Nor would he suppose that with this existence ended, his ulti- 
mate purpose would be attained. Conscious of the possession 



24 READING AND ORATOkV. 

of an immortal nature, and of desires and capacities for knowl- 
edge which cannot be satisfied in this world, he would be sure 
that the great law of progress, which he had traced through ail 
sublunary movements from a lower to a higher state, would not 
be abrogated in the Divine Government and disposition of that 
part of him which can never perish, and yet can never attain 
absolute perfection here. In him, in aid of a living and 
abounding faith, his trained and cultivated infellect would 
assure him that : " As we have borne in this life the image of 
the earthly, so we shall also, in the life to come, bear the image 
of the heavenly." This is the last, the true lesson of a perfect 
development of the human mind. Never forget that true 
science, so far from being an enemy to religious truth, will al- 
ways stand as the mediator in the ever-pending conflict be- 
tween Religious Faith and Human Reason. 

In old times, in a church in Lucca, whenever Popes or Em- 
perors or mighty Conquerors passed, a priest would stand in 
the door and burn before their eyes, as the gorgeous pageant 
swept by, a small bundle of flax, as a fit symbol of all human 
fame, accompanied with the cry. Sic transit gloria niimdil In 
the wise study of nature and of ourselves, we see such a symbol 
and daily hear the cry. Remember that all earthly fame is but 
as a little cloud of dust that the wind raises and disperses, why, 
or how, or whither, who can tell ? Then, so live as to secure 
that 'immortal honor hereafter that shall survive, in another 
world, the dissolution of the entire system of Nature herself. 

C. S. V^^EST. 



FITZ LEE. 



IT is not alone as a soldier that I commend Fitz Lee to your 
favor, for it was not alone as a soldier that those who knew 
him loved him best. It was rather for the modest good sense 
and the warm, honest heart which beat beneath his ragged uni- 
form ; a heart that never brought a blush to the cheek or a tear 
to the eye of any soldier. His was no hard, ascetic temper, 



FITZ LEE. 



-D 



which substituted harshness for courage and reserve for wisdom, 
but a Hght and buoyant spirit which 

" Ever with a frolic welcome took 
The sunshine and the storm." 

I commend him to your favor because under all the fierce 
light which beats upon high names, "he has ever worn the 
white flower of a blameless life." 

How could it be otherwise ? Honor beats with his blood, 
and all things high come easy to him. He " fetches his life 
from men of royal liege." The very Government under which 
he lives, nay, the very office to which he aspires, was fashioned 
into shape and usefulness by his maternal ancestor, George 
Mason, whose brazen image in yonder yard keeps watch and 
ward over Virginia's great son. Upon the sire's side what a 
pedigree! From the hour when our race first planted foot 
upon Virginia's soil, some Lee has made her annals illustrious, 
and one has made her name to flame over the earth with such 
fierce light as to blind the stars. 

Amongst a race of brave people — a people whose common 
schools were once beneath the father's roof, where they were 
taught to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth — a people who 
believe in nobility of blood, and ever boast the purity of their 
own ; such a people will be ready to believe that a man so 
fathered and so mothered is worthy to wear Virginia's highest 
honors, unless his own great kinsmen have flung them beyond 
his reach. 

I well know your intriguing politicians and smoother cour- 
tiers please you best, and that the strong men who lay up and 
hoard thought rather than squander it in loose-flowing speech, 
are too often ignored and undervalued. I well know how eager 
you ever are to array your lilies of the valley in more than 
Solomon's glory; but before you close the doors of ambition 
upon the silent farmer, I pray you look over the scarred and 
naked bosom of our beloved — our beloved — and say who is the 
physician to heal her wounds. 

Look abroad and see how and by whom lost States have been 



20 READING AND ORATORY. 

redeemed. Look to Louisiana, the Andromeda of States, and say 
who was the Perseus who burst her fetters and delivered her from 
the embrace of her black Calibans. It was Nichols, planter, 
and school-fellow of Fitz Lee. Look to Carolina, the star-eyed 
belle of the South — she who once " set us the path to Stygian 
horrors with the splendor of her smile"; she who has been so 
long moaning with the knife at her proud and beautiful neck, 
and say who was her redeemer; Wade Hampton, planter, and 
comrade of Fitz Lee. Nay, in our own agony and bloody 
sweat, when Virginia was 

" A looming bastion fringed with fire," 

when her people were besieging heaven with prayers, and the 
world with entreaties, and finding alas ! that France was too 
far, and God too high to hear us, to whom did we turn in that 
supreme hour for counsel and comfort ? Was it to the Congress 
which prattled and babbled in this city or to yonder flaming 
frontier — 

" Where the ranks were rolled in vapors. 
And the winds were laid with sound." 

Was it to the Orrs and Wigfalls, the Footes and Pryors ? 
— or to that 

" Good grey head which all men knew — 
That iron nerve, to true occasion true — 
That tower of strength, 
Which stood four square to all the winds that blew." 

It is an interesting fact in Virginia's history that whenever 
she is assailed with danger, or stricken with suffering, she has 
ever beckoned these Lees to her side, and been happier when 
her hand was in theirs. Her eye ever " marks their coming 
and grows brighter when they come." And during our terri- 
ble strife, in the days of her deepest and darkest despon- 
dency, it was upon the broad bosom of Robert Lee, her greatest 
son, that Virginia laid her weary head, and " with her sweet eyes 
slowly brightening close to his," gathered inspiration from the 
beating of that mighty heart. 

It is a glorious fact in the history of this family that no dis- 
tance could be so great that the voice of Virginia's sorrow did 



ANTONIO ORIBONI. 2f 

not reach and recall them. No fortune could be so great, and 
no rank so high that they would not surrender them at her call. 
They have ever loved her with a love far brought from out the 
historic past. There has been no pulse in their ambition whose 
beatings were not measured from her heart. 

And now, whni Peace has spread its white wings over the 
land and a Lee for the first time within the living memory asks 
something from a people for whom Lees have done so much, 
am I to be answered that Virginia remembers not in prosperity 
those upon whom she leant in adversity ? She can forbear to 
visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, but can she show 
no mercy to those who have loved her and kept her com- 
mandments ? W. H. PAYNE. 



ANTONIO ORIBONI. 
I. 

IN gray Spielburg's dreary fortress buried from the light of 
day, 
From the bounteous, liberal sunshine, and the prodigal breeze's 

play,— 
Where no human sounds could reach him, save the mocking 

monotones 
Of the sentinel whose footsteps trod the dismal courtyard 

stones — 
Lay the young and knightly victim of the Austrian despot's 

law, 
Worn with slow, consuming sickness, on his meagre bed of 

straw. 

11. 

Oft he strove to press his forehead with his pallid hand in vain, — 
For the wrist so thin and pulseless could not lift the burdening 

chain : 
Though his lips were parched to frenzy, while the quenchless 

fever raged, 



28 READING AND ORATORY. 

They had halved the stint of water, lest his thirst might be as- 
suaged : 

And because his morbid hunger loathed the mouldy food they 
thrust 

Through the gratings of his dungeon, they had even with- 
held the crust. 

III. 

Snatched from country, home and kindred, from his imme- 
morial sky 

Rich with summer's lavish leafage, they had flung him here 
to die ; 

Not because through perjur'd witness they had stained his noble 
name. 

Not because their jealous malice could adduce one deed of 
shame : — 

But he learned to think that freedom was a guerdon cheaply 
bought 

By the lives of slaughter'd heroes and — he dared to speak the 
thought ! 

IV. 

And for this, — for this they thrust him where no arm might 
reach to save, 

And with youth's hot pulses thronging, sunk him in a living 
grave : 

Strove to stifle in a dungeon, under piled centurial stone, 

Titan-thoughts whose heaving shoulders might upturn the ty- 
rant's throne ; 

— Motherland ! thou heard'st his groaning, and for every tear 
he poured. 

Thou hast summoned forth a hero, armed with Freedom's 
vengeful sword ! 

v. 

Through the dragging years he wasted, — for the flesh will still 

succumb, 
Though the inexorable spirit hold the lips sublimely dumb, — 



ANTONIO ORIBONI. 29 

And he yearned to clasp his brothers, — enter the old trellised 

door, — 
Fall upon his mother's bosom, — kiss his father's hand once 

more. 
Till he murmured, as the vision swam before his feverish 

eye,— 
' O to hear their pitying voices break in blessings ere I die ! 

VI. 

"Thou who shrank'st with human shrinking, even as I, and 

thrice didst pray, 
If 'twere possible the anguish from Thy lips might pass away — 
Lift this maddening, torturing pressure, seal this struggling, 

panting breath, — 
Let Thy mercy cheat man's vengeance, — lead me out to peace 

through death : 
Rend aside this fleshy fastness, shiver this soul-cankering 

strife, 
Turn the key. Thou Blessed Warder, — break the cruel bolt of 

life ! " 



In the deep and ghostly midnight, as the lonely captive lay 
Gasping in the silent darkness, longing for the dusk of day. 
Burst a flood of light, celestial through the rayless prison cell. 
And an angel hovering o'er him, touched his shackles, — and they 

fell; 
And the wondering, tranced spirit, every thrall of bondage 

past, 
Dropt the shattered chains that held it, and sprang upward, — 

freed at last. Margaret j. preston. 

Mrs. Margaret Jinkin Preston, the leading female poet of Americans a daughter of 
tr.e late Rev. George Junkin, D. D., a former President of Washinsjlon College, Lex- 
ington, Va. She comes of an ancient and honorable Philadelphia family, but the greater 
part of her life has been spent in Virginia, and for the past twenty years she has been 
the wife ol Col. John T. L. Preston, of the \'irginia Military Institute. Her literary 
and artistic tastes early manitested themselves, and fortunately circumstances have per- 
mitted their fullest cultivation, from her earliest childhood, by study, foreign travel, 
and surroundings. In the classics, as well as in the languages and literatures of 



30 READING AND ORATORY. 

modem Europe, her education has been complete and crxical. But with all her gen- 
ius and culture, she has never stepped out before the reading public to fill the role of 
the purely literary ivoman. Her life-aim seems to be, first of all, to do worthily a 
woman's truest and most legitimate work — that which confines itself to the province of 
home ; the High Art of wifehood and motherhood she places infinitely beyond all 
others, and to attain its ideal has occupied her j^ears. The contributions she has made 
to the literature of the country are recreations, simply, from the duties of life. She 
has published, in prose, Silveriuood; a Book of Memories (1856) : and in poetry, Beech- 
enbrook : a Rhym^ of the War (1865) ; Old Song and New (1870) ; and Cartoons (1876). 
The last two volumes were received with great favor in both Europe and America, and 
widely extended her reputation. Her writings display true poetic feeling, dramatic 
power, high cuiture and womanly tenderness, combined with masculine strength, 
breadth of vision, and restraint of passion and utterance. 



EAST TENNESSEE. 

MR. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I plead guilty to the 
" soft impeachment." I was born in East Tennessee, 
on the banks of the Wautauga, which, in the Indian vernacular, 
is " beautiful river," — and beautiful river it is. I have stood 
upon its banks in my childhood, and looked down through its 
glassy waters, and have seen a heaven below, and then looked 
up and beheld a heaven above, reflecting, like two mirrors, 
each in the other its moons, and planets, and trembling stars. 

Away from its banks of rock and cliff, hemlock and laurel, 
pine and cedar, stretches back to the distant mountains a vale 
as beautiful and exquisite as any in Italy or Switzerland. 
There stand the Great Unicorn, the Great Black, and the 
Great Smoky Mountains — among the loftiest in the United 
States of North America — on whose summits the clouds gather 
of their own accord, even in the brightest day. There I have 
seen the Great Spirit of the storm, after noon-tide, go take his 
nap in the pavilion of darkness and of clouds. I have then 
seen him arise at midnight as a giant refreshed by slumber, and 
cover the heavens with gloom and darkness, have seen him 
awake the tempest, let loose the red lightnings that run among 
the mountain-tops for a thousand miles, swifter than eagles' 
flight in heaven. Then I have seen them stand up and dance 
like angels of light in the clouds, to the music of that grand 



A VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION. 31 

organ of nature whose keys seemed touched by the fingers of 
Divinity in the hall of eternity, that responded in notes of thun- 
der that resounded through the universe. 

Then I have seen the darkness drift away beyond the hori- 
zon, and the morn get up from her saffron bed, like a queen, 
put on her robes of light, come forth from her palace in the 
sun,- and stand tip-toe on the misty mountain-tops ; and while 
night fled from before her glorious face to his bed-chamber at 
the pole, she lighted the green vale and beautiful river where 
I was born, and played in my childhood, with a smile of sun- 
shine. O! beautiful land of the mountains, with the sun 
painted cliffs, how can I ever forget thee ! 

L. C. HAYNES. 



A VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION IN THE 
GOOD OLD DAYS. 

WHAT a good time and place it was — the old Hall in the 
days of my youth ! And the "sweet fields" of that far- 
away time are even sweeter now, I think, in the retrospect^, 
than then in actual reality. But they were surely charming. 
The sun shone so brightly then; the bloom of the flowers was 
so enthralling; the youths and maidens were so rosy and 
laughing ! — Ah ! I go back in memory to Oaktree Hall with de- 
light. 

It was in summer that the Hall was in its glory. A great 
host of relations gathered there — for never was clan more clan- 
nish than ours — and a thousand divertisements sent the hours 
and days upon their way with mirth and pleasure. If you 
wished to ride, there were excellent saddle-horses in the stable; 
if the ladies wished to drive, the sleek and very dogmatic old 
coachman was promptly at the door with the roomy old car- 
riage and the glossy old horses, if you chose to row or fish, 
there was a little boat balanced lightly beneath the willow, on 
the bright waters of the stream from the hills, which you as- 
cended easily with a paddle, the banks on either hand fringed 



32 READING AND ORATORY. 

with foliage of tender green, or every tint of the rainbow, as 
the season was summer or autumn. In the neighboring hills 
there were wild turkeys, partridges, and a stray deer now and 
then — how often I have hunted them, albeit the most unworthy 
of the representatives of Nimrod ! and how well I remember 
the fat doe, just under whose left eye my dear brother planted 
his rifle-ball ! 

If you preferred in-door amusement, there was an old book- 
case containing a long array of volumes of the £di?iburgh and 
other reviews ; the Waverly novels, with a great collection of 
(odd) volumes of the old-time, Laura-Matilda style of romance ; 
Charles Lamb, the English poets and orators, Pierce Egan, 
works on farriery^ farming, and much modern literature, to fill 
up. If you desired to combine enjoyment of Nature, literature, 
and laziness, you could take a book, drag out a capacious 
split-bottomed chair to the grassy circle beneath the great oak, 
and, leaning luxuriously back there, with a cigar or a pipe, 
lounge, idly and dreamily, hour after hour, lulled to pleasant 
reverie by the sound of the piano from the drawing-room. . 

I cannot help repeating Avhat a charming place the old Hall 
was in summer. It was the resort of uncles and aunts, nephews 
and nieces, children and grandchildren, and cousins and 
friends — everybody connected with the hospitable family 
drifted thither as though borne on some friendly tide to the 
most peaceful and delightful of harbors. One year I remem- 
ber there were forty-four children staying at the Hall, and I 
leave the worthy reader to draw for himself the picture of that 
little army of bright faces on the grassy lawn. How lovely 
they were! With their curls, and rosy cheeks, and sparkling 
eyes, they made it a fairy time, dotting the expanse beneath 
the century oaks, Hke flowers of the spring. And the little 
ones, take notice, were but one class of the population. Young 
maidens wandered slow in the distance, attended assiduously 
by their boy-lovers; elderly mademoiselles and cavaliers of 
eighteen or twenty decorously promenaded and discoursed: 
younger urchins ran, played, raced on colts, or wrestled; dim- 
pled little ones staggered or tripped with uneven steps on the 



A VIRGINIA COUNTRY MANSION. 33 

grass and in the arms of the old negro nurse, with her head in 
a white handkerchief and her consequential gait, you saw the 
chubby-faced, curly-haired, open-and-staring-eyed darling of 
all, decked out by mamma in all the colors of the rainbow, the 
wonderful, unheard-of, most remarkable of created beings, the 
paragon of paragons — in a single word, the baby ! 

I grow uncommonly young again as I think of these sighing 
lovers, toddling little ones, and that extraordinary baby, for 
whose notice the maidens violently contended. I see the blue 
of the sky and the bloom of the flowers again, and the summer 
birds sing in my memory. john esten cooke. 

John Esten Cooke has done for the historical traditions of Virginia what Simms did 
for those of the Carolinas, and Cooper for those of the North and West. Some of his 
historical novels, such as the Virginia Comedians^ and Henry St. John^ are the best 
and truest pictures anywhere to be found of Virginia in the olden time. He has shown 
himself an able biographer also by his Lives of Stonewall Jackson and Lee, and he 
contributed actively in other ways to the literature of the War. 

He was born at Winchester, Va., in 1830, and spent the first years of his life at Glen- 
gary, his father's estate in Frederick County, whence on the burning of his house there, he 
removed to Richmond, as the place of session of the higher courts of the Commonwealth. 
His father, John R. Cooke, was a lawyer of the highest order of ability, a man of much 
sweetness of disposition, elegance of manner, and was greatly beloved and respected 
by his eminent associates, among whom were Chief-Justice Marshall, Judge Tucker, 
Watkms Lee, and Judge Stannard. His mother was Maria Pendleton, a grandniece of 
Judge Edmund Pendleton. 

He was educated at an ordinary Virginia school, and finished at sixteen under Dr. 
Burke, a very excellent teacher of languages, at Richmond. He studied law with his 
father, beginning the practice at twenty-one, but discontinuing it three or four years 
afterwards, for literary pursuits, writing for the Southern Literary Messenger and the 
New York magazines until the war. During the war, he served in the Virginia cam- 
paigns, for the most part on Gen. J. E. B. Stuart's staff, from April 10, 1861, to April 10, 
1865. Since the war he has resided in Clark County, Va. He was married in 1867 to 
Miss Page. 

The following are his publications written before the vi'ar: Leather Stocking and 
Sitk ; The Virginia Comedians^ 2 vols.; The Youth of Jefferson: The Last 0/ the 
Foresters, Elite, or the Hutnan Comedy: Henry St. John^ Gentleman: Fair/ax. His 
war books are Surry 0/ Eagle's Nest : Mohtin: Hilt to Hilt; Hanimer and Rapier: 
IVearingof the Gray: A Life 0/ General Lee : Stoneivall Jackson^ a Biography. Mr. 
Cooke has a fine imagination, he is exceedingly well read in the old Virginia traditions, 
and he knows how to carry his readers with him in the scenes that he creates. — Hart's 
Manual of A merican Literature. 

He is one of the most prolific of American writers, and since the war has produced: 
Out of the Foam: The Heir of Gaymount: Dr. Vandyke: Her Majesty the Queen: Pretty 
Mrs. Gaston: Justin Harley : Cary of Hunsdon ; Canolles: besides innumerable short 
sketches, tales, reviews, and poems contributed to the leading periodicals. 



34 READING AND ORATORY, 

EQUAL PROTECTION TO ALL CLASSES. 

THE Southern people should not simply promise, but should 
insure equal protection to all classes: and let us, fellow- 
citizens, do this, not because it is politic, but because it is right. 
It was not policy that guided Wade Hampton in redeeming 
South Carolina. His sense of right, his sense of justice, his 
sense of honor — his true manhood — inspired his statesmanship. 
The path of honesty was the way of wisdom, and it led to vic- 
tory. Hampton urged his people to accord equal rights, equal 
justice — equality under the law — to all classes; these he prom- 
ised on behalf of his party, and thereto pledged his honor. He 
was believed, because of his honor; and his cause prevailed, 
because it was honest. Those promises he is now redeeming; 
and he will redeem them all. Wade Hampton leads: let us 
follow. Be true to our professions; be true to our honor; be 
true to ourselves; and the American people will be true to us. 

T. M. LOGAN. 



SPRING. 

SPRING, with that nameless pathos in the air 
Which dwells with all things fair, 
Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain, 
Is with us once again. 

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns 
Its fragrant lamps, and turns 
Into a royal court with green festoons 
The banks of dark lagoons. 

In the deep heart of every forest-tree 
The blood is all a-glee. 

And there's a look about the leafless bowers 
As if they dreamed of flowers. 

Yet still on every side we trace the hand 
Of Winter in the land, 



SPRING 35 

Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, 
Flushed by the season's dawn. 

Or where, like those strange semblances we find 
That age to childhood bind. 
The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn, 
The brown of Autumn corn. 

As yet the turf is dark, although you know 
That, not a span below, 

A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, 
And soon will burst their tomb. 

Already, here and there, on frailest stems 
Appear some azure gems, 
Small as might deck, upon a gala day. 
The forehead of a Fay. 

In gardens you may note amid the dearth 

The crocus breaking earth; 

And near the snow-drop's tender white and green, 

The violet in its screen. 

But many gleams and shadows needs must pass 
Along the budding grass, 
And weeks go by, before the enamored South 
Shall kiss the rose's mouth. 

Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn 
In the sweet airs of morn; 
One almost looks to see the very street 
Grow purple at his feet. 

At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, 
And brings, you know not why, 
A feeling as when eager crowds await 
Before a palace gate 

Some wondrous pageant ; and you scarce would start, 
If from a beech's heart, 



36 READING AND ORATORY. 

A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth should say, 
"Behold me! I am May!" 

Ah! who would couple thoughts of war and crime 

With such a blessed time! 

Who in the west wind's aromatic breath 

Could hear the call of death! 

Yet not more surely shall the Spring awake 
The voice of wood and brake, 
Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms, 
A million men to arms. 

There shall be deeper hues upon her plains 
Than all her sunlit rains, 
And every gladdening influence around. 
Can summon from its ground. 

Oh! standing on this desecrated mould, 
Methinks that I behold. 
Lifting her bloody daisies up to God, 
Spring kneeling on the sod. 

And calling, with the voice of all her rills, 

Upon the ancient hills 

To fall and crush the tyrants and the slaves 

Who turn her meads to graves. henry timrod. 

The sweetest singer of the South, Henry Timrod, was bom in Charleston, S. C, 
December 8, 1S29, and died of consumption, in Columbia, S. C, October 6, 1867. He 
spent some time in the University of Georgia, then read law in the office of Hon. 
James L. Pettigru, but finding the profession distasteful, became tutor for children of 
Carolina planters. Early in 1863 he joined the Confederate army of the West as war 
correspondent of Charleston Mercury^ and the next year was editor of the Columbia 
South Carolinian. A small volume of his poems was Dublished by Ticknor & 
Fie.ds, Boston, i860; and, in 1872, E. J. Hale & Son. New York, published his collected 
poems, editea, with an admirab\e memoir of the poet, by his friend Paul H. Hayne 
Though denied recognition during his lifetime, Jiis a^enius is now futy acknowledged, 
and his works are a part of the permanent literature of America. " Were one to sum 
up the idiosyncrasies of Timrod' s genius and poetic manner, I think it would be just 
to notice, in the first place, the simplicity, clearness, purity, and straightforward force 
of his imagination, which within its appointed bounds .... is always a true enchanter. 
His productions do not appeal, like too many of Edgar Foe's, to our sense of rhyth- 
mic harmony alone, nor are they charming but mystic utterances, which here and 



RICHARD HENRY LEE. 37 

there may strike a vaguely solemn echo in the heart of the visionary dreamer. No! 
beneath the surface of his delicate imagery, and rhythmic sweetness of numbers, rest 
deeply embedded the 'golden ores of wisdom.' As an artist, he fulfilled one of Cole- 
ridge's many definitions of poetry (' the best words in the best order,') with a tact as ex- 
quisite as it was unerring. And /us style is literally himself. 'His compositions — 
with all their elegance, finish, and superb propriety of diction — always leave the im- 
pression of having been borit^ not manufactured or made.' His morale is perfect. What 
can speak more emphatically for the native soundness, wholesomeness, and untainted 
virility of his genius, than the absence from his works of all morbid arraignments of 
the Eternal justice or mercy; all blasphemous hardihood and whining complaint — in a 
word, all Byronisin of sentiment, despite the ceaseless trials of his individual experi- 
ence, his sorrows, humiliations, and corroding want?" — Paul H Haync. 



RICHARD HENRY LEE MOVES THE RESOLU- 
TIONS OF INDEPENDENCE. 

THE Virginia Convention entrusted her command to 
Thomas Nelson, one of her delegates to Congress, and 
upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Richard Henry Lee was se- 
lected to make the motion. Nor could this honor have been 
more worthily bestowed. Of honored ancestry, large fortune, 
splendid intellect, and ample learning, from the time he offered 
his youthful sword to the unfortunate- Braddock he had been 
conspicuous for his public spirit, and had early taken rank with 
the foremost of the American patriots. Tall and commanding 
in person, with the noble countenance of a Roman, the courage 
of a Csesar, and the eloquence of a Cicero, at the bidding of 
Virginia, he arose on the 7th day of June, 1776, and in her 
name urged his countrymen no longer to hesitate, but pressing 
forward, to cross the Rubicon, and secure to themselves and to 
their posterity those inalienable rights bestowed upon them by 
their Creator. He moved, in the language of the Virginia 
Convention, " That these United Colonies are, and of right 
ought to be, free and independent States ; that they are ab- 
solved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all 
political connection between them and the State of Great 
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; that it is e.\- 
pedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for form- 
ing foreign alliances; that a plan of Confederation be prepared 



3^^ READING AND ORATORY. 

and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their considera- 
tion and approbation." 

The motion was seconded by " glorious old John Adams," 
and Massachusetts stood by the side of Virginia. Her ardent 
and eloquent son proved himself the colossus of the debate 
which followed and continued though several days. Nor was 
Pennsylvania content to be represented by her halting Dickinson, 
but her ardent patriotism found utterance through her profound 
philosopher and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, whose words of 
distilled wisdom fell from his lips like proverbs from the pen of 
Solomon. Of the eloquent speech with which Mr. Lee intro- 
duced the resolution of independence only a faint outline has 
been preserved. It is claimed by the historian, however, to be 
substantially correct. Of this I will only detain you with an 
extract. 

" The question," said he, "is not whether we shall acquire an 
increase of territorial dominion, or wickedly wrest from others 
their just possessions, but whether we shall preserve or lose for- 
ever that liberty which we have inherited from our ancestors, 
which we have pursued across tempestuous seas, and which we 
have defended in this land against barbarous men, ferocious 
beasts, and an inclement sky. And if so many and distin- 
guished praises have always been lavished upon the generous de- 
fenders of Greek and Roman liberty, what shall be said of us 
who defend a liberty which is founded, not on the capricious 
will of an unstable multitude, but upon immutable statutes and 
titulary laws; not that which was the exclusive privilege of a 
few patricians, but that which is the property of all; not that 
which was stained by iniquitous ostracisms, or the horrible deci- 
mation of armies, but that which is pure, temperate, and gen- 
tle, and conformed to the civilization of the age? Animated 
by liberty, the Greeks repulsed the innumerable army of Per- 
sians; sustained by the love of independence, the Swiss and 
the Dutch humbled the power of Austria by memorable defeats, 
and conquered a rank among nations. But the sun of America 
also shines upon the heads of the brave; the point of our 
weapons is no less formidable than theirs; here also the same 



RE-UNION OF VIRGINIA DIVISION. 39 

union p'-evails, the same contempt of danger and of death, in 
asserting the cause of country. Why then do we longer de- 
lay? Why still deliberate ? Let this happy day give birth to 
the American Republic. Let her arise, not to devastate and 
conquer, but to re-establish the reign of peace and of law. 
The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us ; she demands of us a 
living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast, in the 
felicity of the citizen, to the ever-increasing tyranny which deso- 
lates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum, 
where the unhappy may find solace and the persecuted repose. 
She invites us to cultivate a propitious soil, where that generous 
plant, which first sprang and grew in England, but is now with- 
ered by the poisonous blasts of Scottish tyranny, may revive 
and flourish, sheltering under its salubrious and interminable 
shade all the unfortunate of the human race. If we are not 
this day wanting in our duty to our country, the names of 
American legislators of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the 
side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romulus, of Numa, of 
the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those whose memory 
has been and forever will be dear to virtuous men ! " 

WILLIAM WIRT HENRY. 



RE-UNION OF VIRGINIA DIVISION OF ARMY 
OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA. 

HERE in this battle-crowned capital of our ancient Com- 
monwealth, shall the men who wore the gray yearly 
gather and recall the names of those who went forth to battle 
at the bidding of Virginia — who now lie sleeping on the bosom 
of this Mother, that, not unmindful of their valor, not ungrateful 
for this filial devotion, shall keep forever bright the splendor of 
their deeds, 'till earth, and seas, and skies are rended." 

No " Painted Porch" is hers, like that of Athens, where, for 
half a thousand years, the descendants of the men who had 
followed Miltiades to victory might trace the glories of their 
Marathon — no gleaming Chapelle des Invalides, with the light 



40 READING AND ORATORY. 

flaming through gorgeous windows on tattered flags of battle — 
no grand historic Abbey, like that of England, where hard by 
the last resting-place of her princes and her kings sleep the 
great soldiers who have writ glorious names high upon their 
country's roll with the point of their stainless swords. 

Nay, none of this is hers. 

Only the frosty stars to-night keep solemn watch and ward 
above the wind-swept graves of those who, from Potomac to 
James, from Rapidan to Appomattox, yielded up their lives that 
they might transmit to their children the heritage of their 
fathers. 

Weep on, Virginia, weep these lives given to thy cause in vain; 

The stalwart sons who ne'er shall heed thy trumpet-call again; 

The homes whose light is quenched for aye; the graves without a stone; 

The folded flag, the broken sword, the hope forever flown. 

Yet raise thy head, fair land! Thy dead died bravely for the Right; 
The folded flag is stainless still, the broken sword is bright; 
No blot is on thy record found, no treason soils thy fame, 
Nor can disaster ever dim the lustre of thy name. 

Pondering in her heart all their deeds and words, Virginia 
calls us, her surviving sons, " from weak regrets and womanish 
laments to the contemplation of their virtues," bidding us, in 
the noble words of Tacitus, to " honor them not so much with 
transitory praises as with our reverence, and, if our powers per- 
mit us, with our emulation." 

Reminding her children, who were faithful to her in war, that 
"the reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another," she 
points to the tasks left unfinished when the " nerveless hands 
drooped over the spotless shields," and with imperious love 
claims a fealty no less devoted in these days of peace. 

I claim no vision of seer or prophet, yet I fancy that even 
now I descry the faint dawn of that day, which thousands wait 
on with expectant eyes; when all this land, still the fairest on 
the globe — this land, which has known so long" what old Isaiah 
termed the " dimness of anguish" — shall grow glad again in the 
broad sunlight of prosperity, and from Alleghany to Chesapeake 
shall resound the hum and stir of busy life; when yonder noble 



THE BABE OF THE ALAMO. 41 

roadstead, where our ironclad Virginia revolutionized the naval 
tactics of two continents, shall be whitened by many a foreign 
sail, and you, her children, shall tunnel those grand and hoary 
mountains, whose every pass Lee and " Old Stonewall" have 
made forever historic by matchless skill and daring. Thus, 
comrades, assured of her heroic Past, stirred by a great hope 
for her Future, may we to-night re-echo the cry of Richmond 
on Bosworth Field: 

Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again; 
That she may long live here, God say amen! 

W. GORDON McCABK. 



THE BABE OF THE ALAMO. 

I INTENDED, Mr. Speaker, to be silent on this occasion, 
but silence would now be a reproach, when to speak is a 
duty. No one has raised a voice in behalf of this orphan 
child ; several have spoken against her claim. I rise, sir, in be- 
half of no common cause. Liberty w^as its foundation, heroism 
and martyrdom consecrated it. I speak for the orphan child of 
the Alamo. No orphan children of fallen patriots can send a 
similar petition to this House — none save her can say, "I am 
the Child of the Alamo." 

Well do I remember the consternation which spread through- 
out the land, when the sad tidings reached our ears that the 
Alamo had fallen! It was here that a gallant few, the bravest 
of the brave, threw themselves betwixt the enemy and the set- 
tlements, determined not to surrender nor retreat. They re- 
deemed their pledge with the forfeit of their lives — they fell, 
the chosen sacrifice to Texan freedom! Texas, unapprised of 
the approach of the invader, was sleeping in fancied security, 
when the gun of the Alamo first announced that the Atilla of 
the South was near. Infuriated at the resistance of Travis and 
his noble band, he marshalled his whole army beneath the walls, 
and rolled wave after wave of his hosts against those battle- 
ments of freedom. In vain he strove — the flag of liberty, the 



42 READING AND ORATORY. 

Lone Star of Texas, still streamed out upon the breeze, and 
floated proudly from the outer wall. Maddened and persistent, 
he reared his batteries, and after days of furious bombardment 
and repeated assaults, he took a blackened and ruined mass — 
the blood-stained walls of the Alamo. The noble, the martyred 
spirits of all its gallant defenders, had taken their flight to 
another fortress, not made with hands. — But for this stand at 
the Alamo, Texas would have been desolated to the Sabine. 

Sir, I ask this pittance, and for whom? For the only living 
witness, save the mother, of this awful tragedy — "This blood- 
iest picture in che book of time" — the bravest act that ever 
swelled the annals of any country. Grant the boon! She 
claims it as the Christian child of the Alamo — baptized in the 
blood of a Travis, a Bowie, a Crockett, and a Bonham. To 
turn her away would be a shame! Give her what she asks, 
that she may be educated, and become a worthy child of the 
State — that she may take that position in society to which she 
is entitled by the illustrious name of her martyred father — illus- 
trious because he fell in the Alamo! guy m. bryan. 

Guv M. Bryan was bom January 12, 1821, in Missouri, emigrated to Texas in 1831, 
served as orderly to Col. Somerville in the Revolution of 1836, and graduated at Kenyon 
College, 1842. In 1847 he was elected a member of the Texas Legislature and served 
ten consecutive years — six in the House and four in the Senate ; and in 1857 was elected 
to U. S. Congress. He entered the Confederate army upon the secession of Texas, 
and served through the war. In 1873, his disabilities having been removed, he was re- 
turned to the Texas Legislature and elected Speaker of the House of Representativ'es. 
He is a nephew of Stephen F. Austin—" The Father of Texas"— and like his illustrious 
kinsman, has devoted life and fortune to the service and defence of the people of his 
adopted State. 



AUTUMN IN THE SWANNANOA VALLEY. 

A CHARMING feature in these mountain ranges is the coves 
or glens scarped out of the sides of the ridges which enclose 
the viUeys. Short, steep ribs rise from the brooks, and, running 
straight up, join the main ridge at right angles. Between these 
are the basin-shaped coves, down through the centres of which 
trickle branches of pure, sweet water. The crests of these bi- 



AUTUMN IN THE SWANNANOA VALLEY. 43 

secting ridges and the main tops are usually covered with moun- 
tain-pines, whilst the bosom of the cove, rich in the soils of 
disintegrating feldspar and hornblende-slates, is heavily laden 
with the noblest forest-trees. Poplars, beeches, hickories, many 
kinds of the oak, chestnut, linn, buckeye, ash, maple, sour-wood, 
walnut, wild cherry, locust, wild cucumber, and many others, 
flourish and attain great size. Close along the border of the 
same stream, and tracing its meanders, runs a narrow ribbon 
of silver spruces, lifting their dark, rich, conical tops through 
the paler canopy of their deciduous neighbors, like spearmen 
in battle array. 

Now, say we stand facing such a glen as this in the beautiful 
valley of the Swannanoa — as I have often done, and hope to 
do again — in the mellow mid-autumn season. A sharp, biting 
frost or so has already fallen, the decreasing days and the 
lengthening hours of the darkness have begun that mysterious 
chemical change in the vegetable world which we term decay, 
and which notifies the glory of the forest that it must die. But 
there is neither haste nor despair, nor any unseemliness in the 
dying of nature; and these children of the forest, as if in grati- 
tude to their Creator for the magnificence which had been 
vouchsafed to them for a season, receive the summons gladly, 
and prepare to worship Him even in the splendor of their going 
out. Verily, it would seem as if they knew that resurgam was 
written on all things. Each puts on its funeral attire after his 
kind. The oaks and the beeches turn to a pale russet, the maple 
and sour-woods to a deep shining purple, the red-oak to a pale 
yellow with iron-shot specks, the poplars, walnuts, ashes, and 
locusts to the light gold of the hollyhock, and the wild cucum- 
bers and the hickories put on the flaming gold of the sunflower. 

And so they "all do fade as a leaf," except the spruces and 
the mountain- pines, which, like immortal spirits, die not. Oh, 
ye dwellers within cities and among the prosaic haunts of men, 
there is a scene which might kindle your souls with a strange, 
inexplicable fire! Behold that wondrous sea of foliage spread 
over the landscape as a mantle; see that multitude of gorgeous 
colors, and consider the unspeakable splendors of their delicate 



44. READING AND ORATORY. 

intermingling, as they revel in the yellow beams of the setting 
sun, who smiles lovingly upon them and kisses his darlings good- 
night! Verily, it would seem that such magnificence was the 
joint work of both the celestial and the terrestrial powers, 

"As when some great painter dips 
His brush in hues of earthquake and eclipse ;" 

and that some truant rainbow, based on either mountain, had 
bestridden the glen with its radiant arch, and whilst in the 
zenith of its glory had been smitten by a thunderbolt into 
small, glowing dust, whose shining atoms had been scattered 
down upon the outstretched arms of the waiting forest! 

ZEBULON B. VANCE. 



THE TEMPERANCE PLEDGE. 

SIR, if there be within this hall an individual man who 
thinks that his vast dignity and importance would be low- 
ered, the laurels which he has heretofore won be tarnished, 
his glowing and all-conquering popularity at home be lessened, 
by an act designed to redeem any portion of his colleagues or 
fellow-men from ruin , and shame, all I can say is, that he and 
I put a very different estimate upon the matter. I should say, 
sir, that the act was not only the most benevolent, but, in the 
present state of opinion, the most politic, the most popular, the 
very wisest thing he ever did in his life. Think not, sir, think 
not that I feel myself in a ridiculous situation, and, like the 
fox in the fable, wish to divide it Avith others, by converting 
deformity into fashion. Not so; my honor as a gentleman, not 
so! I was not what I was represented to be. I had, and I 
have shown that I had, full power over myself. But the pledge 
I have taken renders me secure forever from a fate inevitably 
following habits like mine — a fate more terrible than death. 
That pledge, though confined to myself alone, and with refer- 
ence to its effect upon me only, my mind, my heart, my body, 
I would not exchange for all earth holds of brightest and 



THE TEMPERANCE PLEDGE. 45 

best. No, no, sir; let the banner of this temperance cause go for- 
ward or go backward — let the world be rescued from its degrad- 
ing and ruinous bondage to alcohol or not — I for one shall never, 
never repent what I have done. I have often said this, and I 
feel it every moment of my existence, waking or sleeping. 

Sir, I would not e.xchange the physical sensations — the mere 
sense of animal being which belongs to a man who totally re- 
frains from all that can intoxicate his brain or derange his 
nervous structure — the elasticity with which he bounds from 
his couch in the morning — the sweet repose it yields him at 
night — the feeling with which he drinks in, through his clear 
eyes, the beauty and grandeur of surrounding nature; — I say, 
sir, I would not exchange my conscious being as a strictly tem- 
perate man — the sense of renovated youth — the glad play with 
which my pulses now beat healthful music — the bounding vi- 
vacity with which the life-blood courses its exulting way through 
every fibre of my frame — the communion high which my 
healthful ear and eye now hold with all the gorgeous universe 
of God — the splendors of the morning, the softness of the 
evening sky — the bloom, the beauty, the verdure of earth, the 
music of the air and the waters — with all the grand associa- 
tions of external nature reopened to the fine avenues of sense; 
— no, sir, though poverty dogged me — though scorn pointed its 
slow finger at me as I passed — though want and destitution 
and every element of earthly misery, save only crime, met my 
waking eye from day to day; — not for the brightest and the 
noblest wreath that ever encircled a statesman's brow — not, if 
some angel commissioned by heaven, or some demon, rather, 
sent fresh from hell, to test the resisting strength of virtuous 
resolution, should tempt me back, with all the wealth and all 
the honors which a world can bestow; not for all that time and 
all that earth can give, would I cast from me this precious 
pledge of a liberated mind, this talisman against temptation, 
and plunge again into the dangers and the horrors which once 
beset my path ; — so help me Heaven ! sir, as I would spurn be- 
neath my very feet all the gifts the universe could offer, and 
live and die as I am, poor but sober. 

THOMAS F. MARSHALL. 



46 READING AND ORATORY. 



EVERY YEAR. 

THE Spring has less of brightness, 
Every year; 
And the snow a ghastlier whiteness, 

Every year; 
Nor do Summer flowers quicken. 
Nor the Autumn fruitage thicken, 
As they once did, for they sicken, 
Every year. 

It is growing darker, colder. 

Every year; 
As the heart and soul grow older, 

Every year; 
I care not now for dancing, 
Or for eyes with passion glancing, 
I^ove is less and less entrancing, 

Every year. 

Of the loves and sorrows blended, 

Every year; 
Of the charms of friendship ended. 

Every year; 
Of the ties that still might bind me, 
Until Time to Death resign me 
My infirmities remind me, 

Every year. 

Ah ! how sad to look before us, 

Every year; 
While the cloud grows darker o'er us, 

Every year; 
When we see the blossoms faded, 
That to bloom we might have aided, 
And immortal garlands braided, 

Every year. 



EVERY YEAR. 47 

To the past go more dead faces, 

Every year; 
As the loved leave vacant places, 

Every year; 
Everywhere the sad eyes meet us, 
In the evening's dusk they greet us, 
And to come to them entreat us, 

Every year. 

"You are growing old," they tell us, 

" Every year; 
"You are more alone," they tell us, 

" Every year; 
" You can win no new affection. 
You have only recollection. 
Deeper sorrow and dejection, 
Every year." 

Yes ! the shores of life are shifting, 

Every year; 
And we are seaward drifting, 

Every year; 
Old places, changing, fret us. 
The living more forget us. 
There are fewer to regret us. 

Every year. 

But the truer life draws nigher. 

Every year; 
And its Morning-Star climbs higher 

Every year; 
Earth's hold on us grows slighter. 
And the heavy burden lighter. 
And the dawn Immortal brighter. 

Every year. albert pike. 

Albert Pike, soldier, poet,and jurist, was born in Boston, December 29, 1809; passed his 
examination and entered Harvard, but was unable to remain, taught school at Gloucester 
six months and during the year went through the studies of two years, returned to Har- 



48 READING AND ORATORY. 

vard to enter Junior class, was required to pay tuition there for Freshman and Sopho- 
more years, which he refused to do, and went home to educate himself. The College 
afterward conferred the degree of A. TNI. on him. After teaching, awhile in Fairhaven 
and Newburyport, Mass., he went West, in 1831, to Tennessee and Missouri, thence to 
Santa Fe, New Mtxico, thence to Little Rock, Ark., in 1833, where he edited the 
Arkansas Advocate and practised law. In 1836 he supervised the publication of the re- 
vised statutes of Arkansas. He gained distinction in the Mexican war, and in the late 
war was brigadier-general in the Confederate service. Considering that his life has 
been one of action mainly, the amount and quality of literary labor performed by 
him is remarkable: Prose Sketches and Poems (1834), Reports of Cases in Si//>renie Court 
of Arkansas (5 vols. 1840-45), TJte Arkansas Form Book (1845), and for private dis- 
tribution several editions of two volumes of poems, Nugce^ and Hymns to the Gods. He 
is Sovereign Grand Commander of Supreme Council, Thirty-third Degree, for the 
Southern Jurisdiction of the United States— the highest dignitary in Masonry — and has 
prepared for the craft seventeen volumes of Rituals, Offices, etc. His editions of the 
Grand Constitutions, Institutes, etc., are the only collection of the laws of the Rite ever 
published in the world. He edits the Official Bulletin of the Supreme Council, and has 
now m course of publication, Materials for the History of Freemasonry in France, 
from i-jiSto /5)9— a monument of Masonic learning and historic research. A number 
of works,— legal, philological, and Masonic,— he holds in manuscript, declining to pub- 
lish. No edition of his poems has ever been permitted by him to be published for the 
public. He resides at present in Washington, and practises in the Supreme Court of 
the United States. 



ACCEPTING A GOLD SEAL OF THE STATE OF 
GEORGIA. 

THE preamble and resolutions have made for me, in the 
archives of the State, a record I had not hoped to merit, 
but trust never to dishonor. The medal, having engraved 
\\\QXQ.o\\ ^ facsimile oi the seal of the Executive Department 
once entrusted to me with words of domination from the State 
of Georgia, and a legend embodying the spirit of the resolu- 
tions, I proudly accept as a memorial possession for life and a 
testimonial certificate for all time. In itself a thing of beauty, 
wrought by the skilful hand of the artisan, in the most pre- 
cious and imperishable metal of nature, it has for me a value 
derived neither from nature nor art — a moral significance im- 
parted by the fiat of a noble constituency — a popular sovereignty. 
I would not exchange it for Star or Garter, or other badge of 
knighthood — nor yet for highest patent of nobility ever bestowed 
by king upon subject. 

In view of the high position of each department of their 



SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. 49 

government in which my fellow-citizen i have heretofore placed 
me, and of this unique testimonial, I may truly say that the 
measure of my ambition is full to overflowing; and that through 
the same channel of communication my heart sends back to 
the State of Georgia, measure for measure, a swelling tide of 
filial gratitude and devotion. 

Would to God I had remaining enough of life and vigor to 
do more for her. But having nearly filled my span of three- 
score years and ten, in the retirement of my quiet home it is a 
cheering reflection that the noble Commonwealth numbers not 
by scores only, but by hundreds, sons younger, more vigorous, 
and no less devoted, who will achieve for her a larger material 
prosperity, a grander civilization, and a higher renown than she 
has yet enjoyed. Charles j. jenkins. 



9^ 



SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION, 

MR. PRESIDENT, my humble belief is, and I say it with 
no asperity of feeling, that no people in the history of 
the world have ever been so misunderstood, so misjudged, and 
so cruelly maligned as the people I represent on this floor. It 
is known to this country and to this body that since the war 
not a solitary arm has been raised throughout the extent of 
Southern territory against the power and authority of the Fed- 
eral Government by a solitary white man of the South, and yet 
we are charged, because of riots at elections, with manifesta- 
tions of hostility to the Government of the United States ! 

A State government is overthrown; a committee of the 
Senate report that the powers which hold it are usurpers; the 
people attempt to assert their rights with the broad declaration 
that they mean no war upon the United States Government, 
and will acquiesce in its demands; the Federal soldiery, who 
have no interest in the support of any political party, cheer the 
people as they move upon the usurpers; a conflict ensues; men 
are killed;— and the Southern people are branded as mur- 
diiers ! 



50 READING AND ORATORY. 

A band of misguided, deluded, ignorant negroes march upon 
converging lines in the dark hours of the night, with arms to 
murder, with hearts for plunder, and wagons and sacks to 
bear away their spoils from a peaceful city; the whites arm for 
defence; a conflict ensues; men are killed; — and the South is 
branded as a land of murderers and assassins ! 

An armed black militia rides in arrogance over a country in 
the midst of a disarmed people; rob, pillage, insult, drag inno- 
cent citizens from their beds at night, and perpetrate crimes not 
to be described on this floor; and when men resist, when they 
defend themselves, their wives, and their daughters, and con- 
flict ensues, — the South is branded as a land of murderers and 
assassins ! 

Men are sent among us — I do not care otherwise to charac- 
terize them — who have no permanent habitation, no interest, no 
property, no sympathy with us, and whose sole purpose is to 
hold the offices, to levy our taxes, to gather our taxes, to dis- 
burse our taxes, to make our laws, to govern our people, and 
then to malign our people. We protest; we strive by all the 
powers given us, under the laws of the land, to overthrow their 
power and recover our rights; riots ensue, — and we are charged 
with disloyalty to the Government of the United States, and 
outrage, and murder ! 

How long is this thing to last ? How long are we thus to be 
the subjects of misrule and of misrepresentation — the foot- 
ball with which political adventurers play ? How long is the 
American Senate to be the stage for such scenes as this? 
How long are the material interests of every section to suffer 
by bankrupting the South, and the very existence of our free 
institutions endangered by the military support of political 
usurpers ? JOHN b. cordon. 

The distinguished soldier, orator, and statesman, John B. Gordon, was torn in Up- 
son Co. , Ca. , February 6, 1832, and received his higher education at the University of that 
State; was admitted to the bar and practised law for a time; entered the Confederate 
army as Captain of Infantry, was promoted regularly through all the intermediate 
grades until he became Lientenant-General, and when Gen. Lee surrendered at Appo- 
mattox commanded one wing ot his army; was eight times wounded in battle. Accepting 
the issue of the war in good faith, he at once exerted the whole of his great influence 
to restore his State and people to their former harmonious relations with the general 



AGAINST REPUDIATION. 5 I 

government; in 1873, he was elected to the U. S. Senate, where, by his ability, wisdom, 
and patriotic devotion to the true interests of the whole country, he soon gained a 
national reputation as statesman. 



AGAINST REPUDIATION. 

A STATE that will not pay its honest debts has lived too 
long. The very existence of a State, so dishonored, is a 
crime, and the prolific parent of crime. The State is to its citi- 
zens the rule of right, the very embodiment of inviolable jus- 
tice. To enforce among its subjects a just regard for mutual 
rights, the State imposes fines and forfeitures, uses chains and 
manacles, builds jails and penitentiaries, constructs the gallows 
and the guillotine. But when the State becomes itself an evil- 
doer, commits those acts which it punishes in its subjects, tram- 
ples under foot the eternal justice which it professes to enforce 
and to dispense, then it debauches the morals of its subjects, 
who have been taught to look to it for inspiration and for 
guidance. 

There is among us in this latter half of the nineteenth century, 
a laxity about debts, public and private, which would have dis- 
graced the ethics of pagan Rome. They called a debt as ali- 
emim, another's money; with us, when a man gets another's 
money, by borrowing or otherwise, it is, in many cases, most 
effectually his own. Stay laws and bankrupt acts, at once the 
evidence and the means of corruption, enable him in many 
ways to bar payment. Nor does he lose caste by his ill-gotten 
wealth. Luxurious parlors open to receive him, and are hon- 
ored by his presence; his wife and daughters flaunt in silks and 
flutter in brocade; his splendid equipage flings mud from its 
whirring wheels on the obscure pedestrian with whose money, 
perchance, it was bought. When, even in the corrupt days of 
the Roman commonwealth, Cicero was approached with a 
proposition for new tablets — obliteration of debts — the indignant 
Consul answered he would give new tablets, but under the auc- 
tioneer's hammer. Nor is it difficult to find the cause of this 



52 READING AND ORATORY. 

woful putridity of morals. The two Governments under which 
we Hve have, for fifteen years, shown an utter disregard, have 
affected, on the grand scale, an utter annihilation of the prop- 
erty rights of the citizen; have themselves committed, over 
and over, those crimes which just governments always punish 
in their subjects. Is it strange that the individual should for- 
get the distinction between mine and thine, should have his 
sensibilities utterly obtunded, when the State, to which he has 
been taught to look as the impersonation of justice, as his ex- 
emplar in morals and in conduct, abuses the confidence re- 
posed in its honor, and denies the obligations of its plighted 
faith? If the State, upon which rests supremely the obligation 
of immutable justice, can plunder and rob on the grand scale, 
why not he in feeble imitation on the small? 

And so, descending step by step, we have learned to entertain 
the idea of repudiation. Calmly we walk to the edge of that 
awful chasm and look down into its dismal depths. Shall 
Virginia take that fatal plunge? No sacrifice would be too 
great to prevent it. But none is required. It is only necessary 
to be content to live as we lived in our purer and happier days. 
If we do this guilty thing, it will be the blackest picture in the 
book of time. The act will have no extenuation. For one, I 
say it deliberately: I prefer the annihilation of her sovereignty, 
the obUteration of her name from history, and from the memory 
of men. 

If Virginia is to commit this crowning infamy, I trust it will 
appear that they who can justly claim the proud heritage of her 
glory were guiltless of the sin ; that Virginia, brave in war and wise 
in peace, renowned in history and in romance, the lofty idol of 
gallant and knightly sons, preserved, so long as she was free, 
her honor unsullied; that the noble mother, convulsed with 
mortal agony — herself no longer — stooped to this last disgrace 
only after she had been bound and manacled, and a baser 
blood had been injected, at a tryant's bidding, into her indig- 
nant veins. b. puryear. 

Bennett Purvear is a native of Mecklenburg Co., Va., and graduated with dis- 
tinction at Randolph Macon College and the ITniversity of Virginia. He was Pro- 



THE SLAVES OF MADISON AT HIS GRAVE. 53 

fessor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in Richmond College (1850-58); and filled 
the same chair in Randolph Macon (1858-66). In i866 he returned to Richmond College, 
where as Professor and Chairman of the Faculty he has contributed very largely to its 
growing reputation and success. 



THE SLAVES OF MADISON AT HIS GRAVE. 

MADISON was distinguished for a serenity of temper, 
which, under no circumstances, in public or private, did 
I ever see disturbed. Cheerfulness was a predominant 
feature in his character ; and frequently he indulged in a play- 
ful Attic wit, always without a sting ; it was the rose without the 
thorn. And, above all, as partaking of the Divine purity, I 
never heard him speak ill of any one. With these personal quali- 
fications, and most happy in his domestic relations, he per- 
formed every duty of life with a scrupulous fidelity, as well from 
a sense of duty as the kindness of his nature; distinguished for 
his filial piety, whose amiable offices, fortunately for his affec- 
tionate spirit, were prolonged to the ninety-seventh year of his 
venerable mother, and were richly repaid by her repeated 
declarations that he had never given her cause of regret. 

He was a devoted husband, a kind brother, a warm friend, a 
good neighbor, and an indulgent master. Many of you were 
at his funer.^1; you must have seen his ;laveF, decently attired, 
in attendance, and their orderly deportment; the profound 
silence was now and then broken by their sobs — they attended 
the procession to the grave. There are none of us, I fear, who 
have not drunk of the cup of affliction, heavily drugged by the 
untimely bereavement of a dear child or affectionate compan- 
ion; such will but too well remember, that, so long as the re- 
mains continued on earth, the tie that connected us seemed 
not entirely dissolved ; but, while standing on the verge of the 
grave, and seeing the corpse deposited, and hearing the pious 
man give utterance to the fearful sentence " dust to dust," 
whose fulfilment by some friendly hand flung back its hollow 
and mournful sound, how it i)icrccd our souls, how we felt that 
the separation was now final — that all was gone! 



54 READING AND ORATORY. 

At this part of the service it was not only the body servant, 
who was standing directly by me, that, by his sobs and sighs, 
showed how severely he felt his bereavement in the loss of a 
kind and indulgent master, but the hundred slaves gave vent to 
their lamentations in one violent burst that rent the air; me- 
thought it ascended to Heaven, and was heard with joy by the 
heavenly host, as a redeeming item in that great account which 
he, in common with all the sons of' Adam, had to meet. And 
I derived consolation at the moment from a belief that if, in 
that great account, slight blemishes here and there, from the in- 
exorable law of our nature, were to be found, this alone would, 
in the eye of mercy, be sufficient to "blot out the unfriendly 
characters that bore record of his infirmity, to be remembered 
no more." james barbour. 



THE CONQUERED BANNER. 

FURL that Banner, for 'tis weary, 
Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary: 
Furl it, fold it, it is best: 
For there's not a man to wave it, 
And there's not a sword to save it, 
And there's not one left to lave it 
In the blood which heroes gave it; 
And its foes now scorn and brave it; 
Furl it, hide it — let it rest. 

Take that Banner down, 'tis tattered, 
Broken is its staff and shattered. 
And the valiant hosts are scattered, 

Over whom it floated high; 
Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it. 
Hard to think there's none to hold it, 
Hard that those who once unrolled it, 
Now must furl it with a sigh. 



THE CONQUERED BANNER. 55 

Furl that Banner — furl it sadly — 
Once ten thousands hailed it gladly, 
And ten thousands wildly, madly, 

Swore it would forever wave — 
Swore that foeman's sword could never 
Hearts like theirs entwined dissever, 
'Till that flag would float forever 

O'er their freedom or their grave. 

Furl it, for the hands that grasped it, 
And the hearts that fondly clasped it, 

Cold and dead are lying low; 
And the Banner, it is trailing, 
While around it sounds the wailing 

Of its people in their woe; 
For though conquered, they adore it, 
Love the cold, dead hands that bore it, 
Weep for those who fell before it — 
Pardon those who trailed and tore it — 
And oh! wildly they deplore it. 

Now to furl and fold it so. 

Furl that Banner: true, 'tis gory. 
Yet 'tis weathed around with glory, 
And 'twill live in song and story. 

Though its folds are in the dust: 
For its fame on brightest pages, 
Penned by poets and by sages. 
Shall go sounding down the ages — 

Furl its folds though now we must. 

Furl that Banner, softly, slowly. 
Treat it gently — it is holy — 

For it droops above the dead; 
Touch it not — unfold it never. 
Let it droop there furled forever. 

For its people's hopes are dead. 

FATHER RYAN. 



56 READING AND ORATORY. 



CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY. 

PRUSSIA and England stand to-day in the fore-front of the 
world's development, with banners inscribed with those 
words of strength, "Freedom secured by law." The principles that 
seem yet with us floating in solution, are there crystallized into 
those political gems of declared rights, which, carried to England 
by our Saxon forefathers, first began to congeal and shine on 
Magna Chafta upon the memorable day of the meadow council; 
and have, by the slow accretion of the world's progress in truth 
and moral rights, become the crown jewels of the lands just 
named. 

We owe much to the German race. From them have we in- 
herited that idea of personal liberty which makes such con- 
trast to the centralization, unified power, peculiar classes with 
peculiar privileges, which is the outgrowth of the Latin race,- 
— and which is to be as clearly seen operating this day as when 
the Roman eagle met the banner of the White Horse in 
Saxony. 

There is no harmonizing these two ideas ; every effort to 
combine them has only resulted in an increase of antagonism, 
leading to convulsive outbreaks of bloodshed and ruin. No 
nation has oftener made the attempt than France. And see 
the result. Look at Spain and Rome! to-day they are as far 
removed from England, Prussia, and those northwestern king- 
doms of Europe, as when the freemen — according to Motley, 
ihe frcetc'omen — of Saxony gave the legions of Caesar the first 
check in their onward course of universal dominion, amid the 
morasses and pme-forests of Germany. 

This assertion of personal freedom — this adoration of liberty 
guaranteed by law — so dear to the Saxon heart, caused our an- 
cestors to struggle with the hydra of despotism from the days 
of Alfred to Runnemede; led to the overthrow of feudalism 
brought in by the Norman conquest, and to a victorious combat 
with all those ideas of a "one man's rule" introduced by the 
foreign marriages of their sovereigns; reddened a hundred 
plains where the rival Roses contended; and upheld the ban- 



A PINEVILLE BALL. 57 

ner of the rights of the people upon the fields of Otterbourn, 
Shrewsbury, Bosworth, Flodden Field, and Marston Moor. 

Through all the woof of the past this brave Saxon principle 
is seen running like a thread of gold— bright, strong, and power- 
ful. In every struggle this has been maintained, in every con- 
flict this has ultimately triumphed — individual responsibility, 
whether o; Kaiser, King, or beggar; individual liberty, as well for 
him who toils in the hut, as for him who feasts in the hall; the 
right to do as seemed to us good, so long as it interferes with 
no other man's liberty or rights; — a freedom so based upon 
eternal justice as to seem an original emanation from the source 
of all justice itself. mrs. m. j. young. 



A PINEVILLE BALL. 

NOTHING can be imagined more simple or more fascinat- 
ing than those Pineville balls. No love of display, no 
vain attempt to outshine a competitor in the world of fashion, 
governed the preparations. Refreshments of the simplest char- 
acter were provided; such only as the unusual exercise would 
fairly warrant, nothing to tempt a pampered appetite. Cards 
w^ere furnished to keep the old men quiet, and the music was 
such only as the gentlemen's servants could give. 

The company assembled early — no one ever thought of 
waiting until bedtime to go to the ball — and the dancing al- 
ways began with a country-dance. The lady who stood at the 
head of the column called for the figures, and the old airs of 
Ca ira. Money-musk, Haste to Weddhtg, and La Belle Catherine 
were popular and familiar in Pmeville, even long after they had 
been forgotten in the city. Ah! well do we remember with 
what an exulting step would the young man who had secured 
the partner of his choice, exhibit his powers of the poetry of 
motion when his partner called for the air La Belle Catherine. 
How proudly would he perform the pas seul on one side of the 
column while his partner did the same on the other side; how 



58 READING AND ORATORY. 

gracefully would they come up to the top of the column 
to cross hands ; how gallantly would he lead her down 
the column; and, when the strain was closing and the leader 
commenced with his bow the prolonged rest on the final note, 
how full of sentiment, of grace, and of courtesy was the bow 
with which he would salute his fair lady ! But these are scenes 
to be lived over in thought : no untutored imagination can 
conceive them. Even in Pineville they have become things 
which were, time cannot restore them; but so long as an old 
Pineville heart beats, so long will be embalmed in the most 
fragrant memory the recollection of a Pineville country- 
dance. 

The staple dance of the evening was the cotillion, which has 
in these degenerate days given way for the quadrille. And 
now, when a country-dance and one or two cotillion sets had 
greatly stirred up the spirit of the dancers, the signal would be 
given for the exhilarating reel. A six-handed reel! Come 
back for a moment, thou inexorable Past, and bring again be- 
fore me that most fascinating of movements! No lover now 
claims the hand of his beloved — here is no room for sentiment, 
for soft whispers, for the gentle pressure of the thrilling hand. 
No; this is a dance. Let none venture on it but a real lover of 
dancing. Your partner must be a lively, merry, laughter-loving 
girl, brisk, animated, and active. Here is no room for affected 
display — you must be self-possessed, for the movement is 
brisk, but with self-possession no danger is to be feared. The 
reel is called, the sets are formed, three couple in each; the 
music begins, and off the merry dancers bound ! In rapid 
succession we have the chace, the hey, the figure of eight, right 
and left, cross hands, down the middle, grand round, cross 
again, and off the whole party darts, to recommence the intoxi- 
cating reel. If your dress become disordered, let it alone; you 
have no time to put it to rights, for the hands must move as 
quickly as the feet. And as your pulse quickens with intense 
delight, hark! how the fiddlers catch the inspiration and sym- 
pathize with your joy. Their stamps become quicker. The 
music runs on in accelerated time — and bow and fingers move 



A PINEVILLE BALL. 59 

with a rapidity which Paganini might envy, but could never 
hope to emulate. The powers of endurance are taxed to the 
uttermost, and set after set retire exhausted. The last set gen- 
erally contains some unlucky wight of middle age, who has 
ventured once more to enjoy the luxury of the dance. How 
wickedly do his young companions (his partner the instigator) 
persevere. How gayly do they strive, by keeping him on his 
feet, to punish his presumption in venturing among them. But 
they know not that men of that age possess powers of endur- 
ance beyond their tender years, and, after a protracted contest, 
they find that they have caught a tartar. The company look 
on in pleased sympathy, and the young are at last obliged to 
acknowledge themselves vanquished. 

The evening's entertainment was always concluded with the 
JBoulanger, a dance whose quiet movement came in appropri- 
ately to cool off the revellers before exposure to the chilly air. 
It was a matter of no small importance to secure a proper 
partner for this dance, for, by old custom, whoever danced last 
with a lady had a prescriptive right to see her home. No car- 
riages ever rolled in the village streets after night; a servant 
with a lantern marshalled the way, and the lady, escorted by 
her last partner, was conducted to her home. And as the sea- 
son drew towards a close, how interesting became those walks! 
how many words of love were spoken! how many hearts sad- 
dened by the discovery of the hopelessness of an attachment ! 
How many persons are yet alive whose destiny depended upon 
one of these walks. To many a dancer the Boiilanger was a 
season of consciousness, of apprehension, of delight reined in, 
of hope, and of fear ; and numbers still live, in whose memo- 
ries this dance is indelibly fixed. f. a. porcher. 

F. A. Porcher was born in Charleston, S. C, in 1809 ; graduated at Yale College, 
and returning home, studied law, but abandoned it for planting ; in 1848, was appointed 
Professor of History and Belles Lettres in the College of Charleston, where he 
still remains ; is President of the South Carolina Historical Society. Besides his Ski-tch 
0/ Craven County (from which the above is extracted), which gives very graphic and 
interesting glimpses of bygone country life in Carolina, he has written numerous his- 
torical and literary essays. 



6o READING AND ORATORY. 



ROBERT E. LEE TKE TEACHER OF SOUTHERN 

YOUTH. 

THE culture and elevation of the youth of the South — what 
a fascinating field, what a grand enterprise! Whose eye 
does not kindle at the thought, and whose heart does not 
sympathize with the sentiment? What is required to stimulate 
us to the noble work? Where shall we look for an example fit 
to be followed and worthy of imitation? 

There is one, an illustrious example to all Southern men, — 
without a parallel in history — the Ohristian knight, whose white 
plume waves before us in whatever direction we cast our eyes, 
— the commander of armies in war; in peace, "the guide, philo- 
sopher, and friend of Southern youth." You know his name. 
His image has a home in all your hearts. Who shall paint the 
picture of his lofty life — -who portray lineaments of his moral 
manhood ? He drew his sword, not in wrath, but in defence 
of his native State, which he loved better than life. Upon its 
point for years he carried the destiny of his people, baffling the 
chosen and skilful leaders of the enemy, beating back their 
hosts from field to field, and securing the safety of the capital 
which sat shaking under their guns. 

The struggle was vain. The contest closed. The dark 
curtain fell. But the white plume of the Christian knight did not 
go down — "the light which led him on was light from Heaven." 
High above those dark and desolate fields arose a single and 
sublime figure — the figure of Lee. Yielding to destiny, he 
called about him his war-worn veterans, his old guard, the 
companions of his toils, his feelings, and his fame; delivered to 
them his farewell order; confided them to the keeping of his 
God and theirs; and, turning from those fatal fields forever, re- 
paired to his own mountains of Virginia. There he dedicated 
all the energies of his heroic nature to the advancement of the 
elite of Southern youth. There the splendid sunset of his life 
lit up their minds with the light of knowledge, and inspired 
their hearts with the love of country. 

Cicero, in the Roman forum, pleading for virtue and patriotism; 



THE BIBLE. 6l 

Plato, in academic groves teaching the Athenian youth lessons 
of philosophy and good-will — hold no higher place. There 
death found him. There with dying lips he ordered: " Let the 
tent be struck!" and passed to the front above. The great 
heart of the South is still bleeding over his grave. History 
claims him, and will surround his name with its most lasting 

lustre. T. M. JACK. 



THE BIBLE. 



LET us contemplate the Bible, in contrast with the hoary 
and venerable lore of ages; and for this purpose enter 
with me, in imagination, some well-stored library, and glance 
around upon the stately array of tomes in which the wisdom 
and the mighty thoughts of the dead are garnered up. They 
are immortal. There they stand, so calm and solemn, as if 
conscious of their imperishable glory. Dare we hope that we, 
too, will one day be numbered among those ranks, and leave 
thoughts for which the wise will barter their gold? And yet, 
what matters it? Those creations, it is true, are great, noble, 
deathless; the instruction, the incitement, the very echo of the 
heart of humanity. But they can tell us nothing of the mys- 
teries most necessary to be known; and which, curtained by 
death, and dreadly palled by futurity and retribution, agitate 
and oppress the inquiring. They can only inform us that those 
mysteries have also darkened other spirits, awakened fears, 
doubts, and fruitless speculations; and the collected wisdom of 
the world leaves us only more deeply conscious of the ignorance 
of man. 

But, amidst the grand array, the eye of the weary and unsatis- 
fied inquirer turns to one small and ancient volume. It has 
passed through a more fiery ordeal of criticism than all the 
writings collectively of India, Greece, and Rome, and it holds 
enthralled the faith and homage of millions of the civilized 
world. Strange, venerable, awful, terrible Book! It is folly to 
ridicule you, it is madness to reject you; with all your hard 



62 READING AND ORATORY. 

sayings, and dark riddles, and dim traditions, and bloody stories, 
you have triumphed over the literature of Greece, and, what is 
more, over some of the noblest intellects and the finest hearts 
which have regalized humanity. What a triumphant, though 
silent concession, have you extorted from your enemies, in that 
they have deemed you sufficiently formidable to elicit almost 
everything which learning, assiduity, genius, weariless research, 
and the most polished intellectual armory, could furnish to 
combat you. 

One book in barbarous dialects, against the glorious language 
and unrivalled genius of a library of Grecians! The true 
Olympian Eagle of Song — the fiery Master of the Lyric torrent 
— the enthroned Triad of action and passion — the lute-voiced 
old Chronicler — the Promethean thief of Clio's Stylus — the 
pure-tongued Annalist of the Immortal Retreat — the thunder- 
bolt of winged eloquence — the mighty genius of that subtle 
Encyclopaedist — the polished Censor and Panygerist of de- 
clining Athens — the genial Essayist and Biographer, and even 
the sublimely attuned soul whose thoughts and language roll 
on like the everlasting harmony of the spheres; yes, all, — 
poet, orator, historian, philosopher, — you must all doff your 
starry well-earned crowns, before the awful diadem of that 
authoritative volume. 

Old Grecians, your glory is Hke the glitter of the starry fir- 
mament, your majesty like that of ''the old rolling heavens"; 
but the Bible is like floods of sunshine, and stormy night, and 
lurid fire, and balmy morn, and life and death, and heaven and 
hell, in the rapidly-shifting scenes of a universal panorama. 
Masters of the heart and intellect as you Grecians are, your 
pages have no such pathos as the story of Joseph; — no psalms 
like the strains of David; — no sublime conceptions of the Om- 
nipotent Jehovah like the Hebrew Prophets; — no grandeur 
like the empyrean-piercing flights of Pauline eloquence, an 
eloquence which neither the intricacies of bad Greek, nor the 
peculiar method of Rabbinic logic, can degrade or obscure. 
Your pages present nothing equal to the magnificent book of 
Job — nothing at all comparable with the wild sublimity of the 



heart's content. 63 

Apocalyptic epic, and your loftiest and most brilliant concep- 
tions fade into insignificance and the dimmest twilight before 
the Divine majesty of the simple gospels. 

What is the sacrifice of a raving Hercules, that he might 
speedily reach the blessed abodes, through the sharp, self-in- 
flicted agonies, which swallowed up in their fiery haste the slow 
torments of the gnawing vest ; what is Agamemnon's touch- 
ing, compulsory sacrifice of the self-devoted Iphigenia ; what 
is the grand suffering of Prometheus for the temporal benefit 
of the human race; what is the affecting self-sacrifice of Al- 
kestis, for her husband's life; what all the voluntary sacrifices 
of Grecian story, compared with the overwhelming tenderness, 
the unspeakable awe and sublimity, of the loving sacrifice of the 
Son of God for the everlasting salvation of a sinful world? 

The genius and learning of centuries have been kindled by 
and lavished upon the literature of Greece; but it never 
brought comfort to the penitent spirit, it never softened remorse 
into repentance, and transformed repentance into the hope of 
faith; it never poured balm into the broken heart, nor consola- 
tion into the bosom of the afflicted and desolate; it never took 
away the sting of sin, or threw a halo of triumph around the 
gloom of death; it never extorted from a glorious crowd of 
genius and learning the confession that " this is the word of 
God," as that same old Bible has mightily done. And after 
every concession is made, which true science can extort or de- 
mand, the spiritual truths of that Book will still shine, a golden 
chain, linking the deepest and holiest hopes of man with the 
heavenly throne of the Eternal God. j. w. miles. 



HEART'S CONTENT. 

THERE is an isle far over troublous seas. 
Above whose valleys bluest skies are bent, 
Where sweetest flowers perfume the pleasant leas — 
Men call it Heart's Content. 



64 READING AND ORATORY. 

And every prow that rides the sea of hfe 

Toward that dear, distant isle is turned for aye, 

Through treacherous calms and stormy shoals of strife, 
Holding its doubtful way. 

Oft in the midmost ocean bark meets bark, 
And as they pass, from each the challenge sent 

Comes back the same across the waters dark, 
" We steer for Heart's Content ! " 

For many an isle there is so like, so like 

The mystic goal of all that travail sore, 
That oft the wave-worn keels on strange sands strike 

And find an alien shore. 

But ever, as the anchor drops, and sails 

From off the storm-strained yards are all unbent, 

From the tall mast-head still the watcher hails, 
" Lo yonder! Heart's Content!" 

And so once more the prow is seaward set; 

Hearts still hope on, tho' waves roll dark around; 
And on the stern men write the name Regret, 

And fare forth, outward bound. 

G. HERBERT SASS. 



CENTENNIAL BILL. 

I HAVE done with the constitutional question, as my time 
will not allow me to go into it further. I put it upon this 
ground: Show me the granted power, or how this bill is neces- 
sary and proper to carry into effect an expressly granted power, 
or, before God and under my oath, I cannot vote for it. 

Talk about sentimental patriotism! I have as much of it as 
most people, but my sentimental patriotism will not allow me to 
trifle with the solemn obligation I took at the Speaker's desk 
when I was sworn in as a member of this House. 



CENTENNIAL BILL. 65 

Now, sir, I put it on another ground — and I beg my demo- 
cratic friends around me to hear me, and I beg the gentlemen 
on the republican side of this chamber to hear me — I put it on 
the ground that the only limit to this grooving corruption in the 
country is a limitation upon the porver of the Government. If you 
would advertise to this country that any scheme that a plausible 
committee or commission can induce gentlemen to strain them- 
selves up to the point of believing to be for the general welfare 
is open to the exercise of power by this Congress, I tell you, 
sir, it will be an advertisement for jobbers; and the lobby will 
be so filled that its agents "will push us from our stools," and 
drive its members from this House. 

But whenever it comes to that, the people of the country will 
say, thank God, they shall not sit here any longer! Whenever 
you claim power to do anything which you may judge for the 
general welfare, you proclaim to the country and to all its 
schemers and jobbers this invitation: "Have any of you any 
scheme you think for the general welfare? If so, bring it for- 
ward!" There will be no lack of them, sir, and the lobbyists 
out there will corrupt this body, if it is corruptible. Your credit 
mobiliers, your railroad schemes, and all your thousand plans 
for plunder upon the public treasury and upon the tax-paying 
and the tax-burdened people of the land will be without remedy. 
There is only one remedy, and that is to limit power ; but there 
is no limitation of power, if this Government can do anything it 
pleases, upon the ground of "the general welfare." 

You have declared in a late resolution, with great unanimity 
on the other side of the chamber, and with some dissension 
on this, that subsidies to private corporations are a thing we are 
too pure to indulge in. But yet, sir, 30 soon as a private cor- 
poration comes here and asks a subsidy for its enterprise, because 
it calls itself a centennial corporation, and talks spread-eagle and 
sentimental patriotism, we say: "O, it would be unpatriotic to 
refuse it!" There is logic for you! 

Now, sir, I am opposed altogether to splendid governments. 
It is old-fashioned, sir, to say it; but I am old enough to be old- 
fashioned. I am opposed to a splendid government and to a 



(£ READING AND ORATORY. 

squalidly poor people. I am opposed to seeing the tax-consumer 
revelling in palaces and in luxury while I hear the wail of woe 
that comes from the tax-burdened people all over the land. I 
am opposed to it. It is the mission of this House, it is the mis- 
sion of my political friends around me here, to say: This thing 
must and shall cease. Right here and now, upon the altar of 
what we believe to be our duty to our people, we will immolate 
even this sentimental patriotism, and in doing it we will go back 
to the simple virtues and habits and customs of our forefathers 
a hundred years ago. john Randolph tucker. 



LET US END SECTIONAL STRIFE. 

FROM the summit of Bunker Hill the voice of American 
history and patriotism spoke to the heart of Mr. Sumner, 
the great apostle of emancipation, and commanded him to re- 
member the devotion and sacrifices of the South in the " times 
that tried men's souls," and he could not sleep under the 
shadow of that eloquent stone until he had made an effort 
to extinguish the hostile memories of war. 

From every battle of the Revolution arise the shades of im- 
mortal martyrs and command us to end the strife. From the 
bloody and honorable fields on the northern lakes, around this 
capital, and from the plains of New Orleans, from the gallant 
decks of the proud Navy that proclaimed that the universal seas 
should be free, and from the yet fresh victories in Mexico,— from 
all comes an appeal for peace. Ah, Mr. President, does not the 
same appeal with more tender and touching pathos speak to us 
from Manassas, Fredericksburg, Sharpsburg, and Gettysburg? 

The great spirits who fell there, and passed from the shadows 
of earth amid the roar of artillery and the red blaze of war, 
have long since made peace on the camping-grounds of the brave 
and the just; over the scenes of their last mortal combat the 
green grass and the sweet flowers of Nature have returned with 
the beautiful Spring, and from their united ranks on that 



LET US END SECTIONAL STRIFE. dj 

august field of review before which all human actions must pass, 
there descends to their countrymen the white flag of a final and 
unending truce, with the message that their blood has been suf- 
ficient atonement for the sins of the nation, and that over their 
peaceful graves their countrymen must shake hands and for- 
ever be friends. 

Then, Senators, in the name of our great forefathers who 
for civil and religious liberty braved the ocean, the tempest, the 
forest, and the savage, to rescue freedom from its fate in Europe 
and plant it in this new world; by the memory of those patriots 
who one hundred years ago gave their blood and treasure like 
water to establish our independence; by the names of those who 
have fallen on every field from Lexington to Appomattox, let 
us be friends, countrymen, brothers. I invoke the Senators of 
Massachusetts by the memory of North Carolina's succor in her 
darkest hour. I invoke the Senators from^ New York, Penn- 
sylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware by the memories of their 
united struggle with Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia; 
I invoke the Senators from every State — from the great daugh- 
ters of Virginia and North Carolina, from those mighty Com- 
monwealths that sprang from the Louisiana purchase by Jeffer- 
son, and were saved by the valor and partriotism of Southern 
men, under Jackson — I invoke all, this day and this hour to 
gather around the family altars, and end forever and forever 
this fratricidal strife. And we shall rear upon the ruins of our 
errors and follies, over the prejudices, passions, and hates of 
the past, a grander and nobler temple of wisdom, justice, and 
liberty than the sun has yet shone upon, and all over and 
through that temple, from its foundation to its dome, we shall 
behold arrayed side by side the virtues, the valor, the sacrifices, 
and the immortal achievements of the North and the South. 
And then, as the sun rises in the east and makes his daily revo- 
lutions until he sinks to rest in the west, his beams will spread 
the light of American liberty and the glory of a happy and 
united people over the whole earth as a blessing to all mankind. 

And now, Senators, I conclude with the sentiments with 
which I began: I thank a merciful Providence that I have been 



68 READING AND ORATORY. 

spared to see this day, and inspired with the courage and truth 
to vindicate the character of the South and make a faithful ef- 
fort to restore and preserve the American Union. I thank God 
that, if I do nothing else, I can at least leave to my sons this 
record, that when they shall remember that the people of the 
South, animated by patriotic courage, undertook, in obedience 
to the principles handed down to them by their fathers, to sepa- 
rate the Union, arrayed themselves in arms to accomplish that 
end, and they shall see the names of their ancestors among 
those whose bright bayonets on the 12th day of July, 1864, re- 
flected the beams of the morning sun back on the dome of the 
nation's Capitol, my children shall also behold the name of their 
father, when that sad war was over, enrolled in the same Capi- 
tol among those who were striving with unalterable and un- 
changeable devotion to cherish and perpetuate forever the 
Union of the States, the Constitution, and liberty And may 
God bless me with the strength and patriotism to do so much 
for the peace, happiness, and honor of my country that no 
human being can doubt the sincerity of my attachment and 
love for her. matt w. ransom. 

Matt W. Ransom is a native of North Carolina, and was born in 1826. He graduated 
at the University of his State in 1847, studied law, and rapidly gained distinction in his 
profession, being elected Attorney-General in 1852; in 1861 he was a Peace Commis- 
sioner from his State to the Congress of Southern States at Montgomery, but finding war 
inevitable, he entered the Confederate army as Lieutenant-Colonel, rose to the grade of 
Major-General, and surrendered at Appomattox. He now represents North Carolina 
in the U. S. Senate. 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL. 

LET me ask my friends what answer they will make when 
they return to their homes, and their constituents shall ask 
them, why they surrendered the rights of the people repre- 
sented in this House? 

When they shall ask you if the House of Representatives 
do not possess an equal power with the Senate in counting the 
electoral vote and determining who is President, you will 



ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL. 69 

answer, "A committee of this House have so reported to it at 
this session, and that no vote can be constitutionally counted 
without its concurrence", when they shall ask you what has 
been the practice of the Government on that subject, you will 
answer them " No vote for President has ever been counted 
without the concurrence of the House since the Government 
was formed"; when they shall ask you if the Constitution 
does not confer on you the power to elect a President if no 
candidate has received a majority of all the electors appointed, 
you will answer, yes, when they ask you if you did not have 
a democratic majority, both of members and States, in the 
House, and the ability to elect a democratic President, you 
will answer, yes ! 

What, then, will be your answer when they ask you why you 
abandoned a certainty for an uncertainty — why you did not 
discharge the duty imposed upon you by the Constitution, 
instead of creating a tribunal for that purpose, whose deter- 
mination was to be confessedly a game of chance? What an- 
swer can you make for putting up to lottery the Presidency of 
forty millions of people? The only answer you can make is 
that you were afraid of the present Executive; the assembling 
of soldiers and artillery here, and the open menaces of the 
friends and supporters of the Executive, had filled your bosoms 
with apprehensions of civil war. Grant it. But is it v.-ise 
statesmanship to encourage intrigues and conspiracies by 
making concessions to them^ Is it not rather our duty to 
stand by the Constitution and laws, and declare him President 
whom the people have elected? It is our duty to stand by the 
ballot-box, not the dice-box! 

If in this game of chance the dice should fall against the 
people's choice, and elect a man reprobated by them at the 
ballot-box; if it should reinstate an administration which they 
have condemned and renounced, and continue over them the 
misrule that has banished their prosperity and paralyzed their 
industries; if, to maintain by force what they have won by 
fraud, they shall annihilate the political power of the South, by 
remanding her States to territorial vassalage, as that party is 



•JO READING AND ORATORY. 

now proposing in the Senate and House; if arbitrary power, 
and the swarm of vultures which follow its shadow to prey upon 
the victims of its lusts, shall be given again to an oppressed and 
suffering people, what answer will you, — what answer can you 
give for surrendering the keys to their fortress which they have 
entrusted to your faithful keeping? 

For myself, I will stand by the Constitution and the sover- 
eignty of the people, and leave it to them to determine whether 
or not they will abandon their Government to a bold, insolent, 
and palpable fraud. Concession to fraud never added strength 
to the right, and only defers the evil we would avoid, and, while 
deferring, increases its strength. If we are right, then let us 
stand by the right, for the sake of the right. If the Constitu- 
tion is assailed by a powerful combination for its overthrow, we 
can best do our duty by rising to the highest courage in its de- 
fence. In the language of a great American statesman, let us 
"cling to the Constitution as the mariner clings to the last 
plank in the shipwreck, when night and tempests gather round 
him." Let us imitate the high courage of that other great 
American name, and adopt his motto, "Ask nothing but what 
is right, and submit to nothing that is wrong." These, sir, are 
the lights that fall along my pathway, and these are the lamps 
by which my feet are guided; and I will follow them with the 
faith and devotion that the philosophers followed the star that 
led them to the Author of truth. r. q. mills. 



MATURNUS' ADDRESS TO HIS BAND. 

MEN — not slaves ! — 
I speak to you ! This creature tells the truth: 
We did not taste Rome's power until we turned 
To fight the legions! That power I knew full well. 
And knowing made the venture — took all risks — 
And now approve them — thus: 

I frankly tell you, we are hard bested! 



MATURNUS' ADDRESS TO HIS BAND. 71 

We've lost three battles, and will lose another 
If we must fight to-morrow — and the last! 
Say we may chance escape from here — break through 
These serried lines — what then? 'Twere but exchange 
Of dungeons, for Rome's prison is the world! 
That sleepless tigress, once she tastes our blood, 
Must lap it every drop! We have defied 
The sacred majesty of Rome, proud sitting 
Upon her seven hills! Whither shall man fly 
When Rome pursues, or how escape when Rome 
Says he shall cease! If we flee to the desert, 
Rome's arm will reach us there! Across the sea — 
On pathless wilds — in dungeons — in the grave — 
There is no sanctuary for us anywhere — 
No refuge for us — no escape from out 
Rome's ghastly thraldom of ubiquity! 

You all have heard 
How proud Achilles was made safe from wounds, 
Except in one small spot! — An arrow probed it, 
And proud Achilles died! And so proud Rome, 
Steel-crusted, shaking off assaults like spray 
Of raindrops dashed on granite, bears within 
A heart so wrung by passion's fiery thrills. 
So flushed, so overcome, so weak, subdued 
By pleasure's mad fruitions, idle ease 
And pampered luxury and cankering lust — 
So dastard in effeminate wantonness — 
That every touch afflicts it — every blow — 
Though but an infant with his bauble dealt it — 
Brings agonies! There is the spot to strike — 
Beneath the armor, past the shield, right through 
The palpitating heart! Great Jove! Rome's heart! 
Our swords are whetted! 

Comrades, we have borne these toils 
Not all in vain! The deed that is to do 
Pales all our past deeds to a feeble shadow 
In its heroic glory ! Day and night 



72 READING AND ORATORY. 

Blend softly with each other, year on year, 
When, sudden, 'thwart the startled face of night, 
A flaming wonder, some great comet, bursts, 
Waving her sword, and all the nations tremble! 
So what we plan shall flash upon the world, 
And strike Rome palsied with astonishment! 

I know a path — it leads o'er yonder crag. 
And through dim valleys, where the banished sun 
Ne'er dreams of shining, till it finds the rills 
That flow to the Adrian sea! Along that path 
We steal away, to-night, unseen, until 
We cross the mountains! Then, disbanding, creep 
Like peaceful travellers, one by one, to Rome. 
There will I meet you — there complete the plot 
That gives us Rome to spoil! 

To Rome, then, soldiers! Follow swift my steps! 
Tread quick and bold — yet light! Wake not the foe 
Who slumbers there beneath us; nor the snow 
That trembles there above us! Guard each breath! 
Above, below, around us, lurks swift death! 

EDWARD SPENCER. 

Edward Spencer, the brilliant magazinist and journalist, was born in Baltimore, 
June 23, 1834, graduated at Princeton in 1855, and has been a professional litterateur 
ever since. He contributes to all the leading magazines and reviews, and is the author 
of numerous plays, including the well-known A"/V, and the tragedy oi Maturnus Since 
1866 he has been connected with the editorial staff of Richvtond Enquirer^ Washington 
Patriot, Neiu York World, and AVw York Sun. At present he is editor-in-chief of 
Baltimore Evening Bulletin. A rare scholar and philosophic thinker, he is, at the same 
time, master of a style brilliant and polished, yet logical and perspicuous, which renders 
all his productions most attractive to cultured readers. 



THE SOUTH IS RISING UP. 

LET us rejoice, now, that our people are marching abreast 
of the spirit of the age. Let gallant South and gener- 
ous North rejoice alike that the South is rising up. Aye, 
forth from dust and ashes, forth from humiliation and defeat, 
she is rising up! The cotton-blossoms are again resplendent in 



THE SOUTH IS RISING UP. y^ 

our fields. They are the robes of our ascension; we are ris- 
ing up. The waters ( f our rivers are being taught to turn the 
wheel, and I hear them chant as they murmur on to the ocean; 
We are rising up! we are rising up! The blades of the boun- 
tiful corn stand in serried ranks in many a field, and the winds 
that toy with the tassels of these foemen of labor, seem to 
whisper as they pass by : We are rising up! we are rising up! 
From the dark recess of the mine comes the merry click of 
pick and spade — iron and coal seem to smg m chorus: We are 
rising up! In the myriad public schools, I hear the myriad 
voices of the young — the citizens of the time to come are there: 
They are rising up ! 

Old men of the conquered South, I salute you reverently! 
You saw — you were a part of the past glory of the South — you 
shared her downfall. God be thanked that you have lived to 
see her thus rising up so valiantly. Your work was not in vain. 
Confederate bonds, wherein your fortunes took their flight, 
will be forever worthless on the Stock Exchange, but they will 
pass current in Heaven; there will they be redeemed when 
the Great Cashier of human accounts reads upon them the sig- 
nature of your patriotism, their makers — your self-sacrifice and 
valor, their endorsers. Your wisdom is your country's pride, 
your virtue her glory; your deeds her fame. Serene be the 
evening of your days, and hopeful. 

For age is opportunity no less 
Then youth itself, though in another dress, 
And as the evening twilight fades away, 
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. 

Women of the conquered South, God bless you! Two 
traits, conspicuous and pre-eminent, have ever characterized 
the old Germanic stock — the Saxon race: firm adherence to 
the right of local government, "home rule"; reverence for 
woman, the chief of all "home rulers." Let these traits be 
cherished. Let not man forget that, of all the altars of relig- 
ion ever reared, whether under the dome of St. Peter's or the 
spire of St. Paul's, there is no shrine of God so sacred as the 
mother's knee, that of all the schools, academies, anduniversi- 



74 READING AND ORATORY. 

ties that open their doors to learning, there can be none whose 
light so fructifies the mind, or kindles the heart as that which 
radiates from the hearthstone of home. 

The " drum and trumpet" histories of the world have no 
place for you- in "the sequestered vales of life" your mission 
lies; there nobly, through hardship and suffering and adversity 
you have performed it. I cannot, I need not if I could, your 
story tell. It is writ on high. It is remembered here. And 
long may the sons of the South revere and guard its mothers 
and daughters. 

Young men of the conquered South, to you I bring special 
message! 

"Young men," said a wise Caliph of Arabia, "young men are 
more like the age they live in than they are like their fathers." 
Profound is the reflection. It must be so; it is well that it is 
so. Our fathers had their work to do. None did their work 
better. In their successes they were gracious; in their fail- 
ure? grand. We have another and different work to do, and 
are not called to do their's over again, or to reattempt the 
things which they and we together failed at. Their true glory 
lay in the fact that they did not tread in their fathers' footsteps, 
but kept on in the course where their fathers left off — not run- 
ning around in a groove like the holiday race-horse; but like 
the battle-steed moving steadily to the front. Had they fol- 
lowed their fathers, America would have remained a British 
colony; had we followed ours, the South would have remained 
a Northern province. 

Imitating their examples, but not repeating their acts, let us 
breathe the spirit of the advancing age in Avhich we live, yet, 
clinging to home-right, town-right, county-right, state-right, 
country-right — yet clinging to those essential principles of free- 
dom which died not in England when Harold fell at Senlac, 
nor died yet in America when Lee sheathed his sword at Appo- 
mattox. 

Revere the past; but remember that we cannot live in it. 
Sacred be it as a Sabbath of the soul; but let it not prevent us 
from gathering the corn-ears that grow around us; for as Christ 



FRANCIS MARION. 75 

said of -the Sabbath, so may we say of the past: "It was made 
for man, not man for it." 

Take no lot or share with " the little hearts that know not 
how to forgive." Be not like the perishing worms which "bite 
each other here in the dust." Think for yourselves, act for 
yourselves, and speak out right boldly that which you do 
think, maintaining dignity and conscience, whether conquering 
or conquered, echoing in your conduct the grand words of St. 
Paul- "Stand up; I myself am also a man." 

JOHN W. DANIEL. 



FRANCIS MARION, 

IT is with a grateful sense of your kindness, and the honor 
done me, that I rise to respond to the sentiment that for you 
is enwrapped in '' The Memory of Francis Marion," that great 
citizen-soldier of the State, one of the master- workers of the 
Revolutionary struggle, whose name is the common heritage of 
his countrymen. That name you have enshrined here; to that 
memory you have set up an altar of continual remembrance, 
and invoked it as the inspiration of your civic and martial life. 
It is well for me that that name speaks always for itself; that 
it needs no interpreter; that its spell is as subtile as it is univer- 
sal, living in tradition and romance and poetry, where it has 
eluded the slower grasp of sober history. The memories that 
cluster around it recall some of the noblest feeling and highest 
living that has ever illustrated the majesty of manhood, and 
ennobled the dignity of human nature. It recalls the self-sacrifice 
and heroism of the Huguenots — those grand exiles for con- 
science — the force and fervor of their creed, their deathless love 
of liberty and virtue. It recalls a strong character, high senti- 
ments, simple and noble manners, the flower and fruit of a noble 
mind. It recalls right thinking and plain living, personal honor, 
undaunted courage and whole-souled devotion to the common 
weal. It recalls a military insight that was genius, and a mar- 
tial fire that was inspiration. It recalls all the dangers and 



76 READING AND ORATORY. 

daring of a partisan warfare on which hung the destiny of an 
oppressed people, and the cause of civil liberty in the modern 
world. It recalls the historic fame of Fort Sullivan, our own 
Fort Moultrie, on yonder sea-girt island — Eutaw, Savannah, 
and the nameless and countless battles in the forest-fortress, 
where, with a handful of faithful followers, he baffled or dis- 
persed the armies sent to destroy him, and kept alive the fire 
of patriotism in a State that was well-nigh overwhelmed in 
despair. 

On the very threshold of our life as a people, there is set up 
a great historical picture that must ever stir the heart, exalt and 
inspire the mind of all the children of this Niobe of States, 
whom we call Mother. When Charleston was taken and Moul- 
trie was a prisoner of war, and his companions in arms were 
his fellow-captives — and Sumpter, sick and wounded, had re- 
tired from the field — and Gates defeated and broken — and the 
State garrisoned from seaboard to mountains by the foe — and 
her Governor was in a sister Colony pleading with his eloquence 
for aid for a stricken people — Marion alone led the forlorn 
hope, led it heroically and cheerfully, in the face of almost 
certain ruin, with the quenchless hope and dauntless courage 
of a prophet. 

These are the memories that make a people great. These 
are the memories — familiar but immortal — that make this land, 
even in its ruin and desolation, a land of hope. These are the 
memories which, as a people, we cannot forget, which in late 
years, amid the perils of war and the sterner hardships of peace, 
have made us men. 

J. p. K. BRYAN. 



THE DUTY LOUISIANA OWES TO THE 
COLORED RACE. 

LOUISIANA must see to it that the statesmanship, which 
so lately ushered in the victory of Conservative princi- 
ples, shall lead directly to the establishment of as absolute a 



THE DUTY LOUISIANA OWES THE COLORED RACE. "JJ 

harmony as possible between the two races that make up her 
population. Legislation is possessed of multiplied agencies for 
the public good; but it must be remembered that education 
is by far the most potent of them all. Legislation can, with 
wise foresight, provide for a homogeneous population; but 
it is through education alone that that homogeneousness 
can be made at once strong and cohesive. It is education 
alone that can harmonize factions ; reconcile differences , 
foster affections ; create sympathies ; encourage brotherhood ; 
and call under one common banner, those who, under 
its own vivifying influence, shall have been made earnest and 
intelligent co-workers in the civilization of a great Common- 
wealth. It is with the aid of education alone, finally, that 
patriots can hope to see the vexed question of the harmonious 
relation between the two races settled — with no humiliation to 
the higher, with no degradation to the humbler. 

This question is indeed one that trenches upon the imminent 
Present. For good or evil, a race equal to the whites — 
at least in numbers, passing suddenly from a condition of 
slavery to a condition of freedom, continuing and needed to 
continue in its former home — must assert itself. It should be 
the duty — and it is clearly the interest — of the State, to see 
that that race shall assert itself in knowledge — not in ignorance; 
in a loyal understanding of its obligations — not in a blind dis- 
regard of them; in an intelligent participation, hereafter, in the 
responsible duties of American citizenship — not in a dogged 
adherence to those prejudices which can flourish only in the 
Saharan Desert of moral and intellectual aridity. It is impossi- 
ble to disregard the legitimate love of this race for their native 
State. It is equally impossible to overlook or make light of 
the logic of their numbers. 

Political partisanship, it should be remembered, is begotten 
of intellectual darkness. A shining and harmonious citizen- 
ship is born only of intellectual brightness. If the next colored 
generations, then, are to consist of good citizens, not weak 
tools for designing politicians, they should be educated. If 
they are to be conservative American citizens, lending their aid 



78 READING AND ORATORY. 

alike to the progress of the State and to the advancement of 
the public, they should be educated. If they are to make 
common accord with the whites, only recognizing in the latter 
the superiority that lies in lineage and in noble memories, indis- 
solubly connected with the history of the world's most exalted 
civilization; and if they are to work with these, with good heart 
and earnest endeavor, to a common patriotic end, they must be 
taught that their State has no preferences, but that, like a 
kindly mother, she gathers in her tender bosom all the children 
who owe their existence to her. r. m. lusher. 

Robert Mills Lusher was born in Charleston, S. C. He graduated with distinction at 
Georgetown College, D. C, and emigrated soon after to New Orleans, where for some 
years he actively engaged in teaching, and for awhile was editor of the Louisiana 
Courier. As a director of the public schools of that city, he contributed largely to 
their successful development. In 1865, Mr. Lusher, to whom, during the war, had 
been confided important and delicate trusts by the Confederate Government, was 
elected State Superintendent of Public Education; was removed, in 1S67, by General 
Mower, as " an impediment to Reconstruction," but restored by General W. S. 
Hancock when he assumed command of the District. He was appointed in 1868 agent 
for Louisiana, of the Peabody Fund. In 1872 he was re-elected State Superintendent, 
but through the intervention of the Federal Government did not fill the. office; but in 
1876 he was again elected, and once more assumed control of the educational system 
of the State, to which he has given shape and efficiency. 



THE DEATH OF MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE E. 
PICKETT. 

WE have met to pay the last sad tribute to one of the 
most gallant and modest of soldiers and gentlemen. 
Who ever heard of General Pickett's appropriating even that pub- 
lic attention which^ since the war, was justly his due and would 
have been so freely accorded him? So reticent and retiring was 
he in his daily life among us, that we had well-nigh forgotten 
this quiet gentleman had been the gallant commander of perhaps 
the most illustrious division of infantry that ever charged a foe 
in modern battle — a division that deserved to rank with " The 
Terrible" of Marshal Victor, or the "Tenth Legion'' of 
Caesar. 



DEATH OF MAJOR-GENERAL PICKETT. 79 

It were idle to speak of the courage of one who Uved and 
moved and had his being in an atmosphere of personal intre- 
pidity. All the world were familiar with this characteristic of 
George Pickett; but many were ignorant of that finer kindred 
trait — his lofty and delicate sense of personal honor. I mean 
not so much the honor that is ever ready to resent an insult to 
oneself, as that loftier honor ever careful to refrain from in- 
jury to another; that clear, delicate, unwavering perception 
and grasp of the right. 

But there is another proof of Pickett's greatness, — another 
fact in his experience and feature in his example — to which I 
would call special attention. Who was the quiet man who kept 
his quiet ofifice just beneath my own? He was born and bred and 
lived a soldier — from his seventeenth to his fortieth year trained 
for and in the profession of arms — till in his fully-matured man- 
hood, when all the flexibility of youth was ^one and his entire being 
had become hard-cast in this one mould, suddenly this simple- 
hearted soldier and gentleman, educated to a sure dependence 
for the supply of every want, found himself hurled out of his 
place, and into the world — the world of craft and guile, of 
money-loving and money-getting — the world of push and drive 
and clutch and scrape for wealth, — aye, for bread. 

Nor was this the whole or even the worst of the change. Oh! 
what was the life and what the place he left behind him! You 
know what that was to which he came. Would you realize the 
extent and violence of the transition? Turn back, then, just 
twelve years, and see him riding like a demi-god at the head of 
his five thousand up that slope of death at Gettysburg, — riding 
in that fearful hush, with lightning and thunder, death and hell, 
locked in the barrels of his muskets, to be loosed at his word — 
riding on with life and death, States and Constitutions, liberty 
and destiny and history flickering in the gleam of his bayonets — 
riding on when the tempest burst, and death and hell were 
loosed — on and on into the awful carnage and horror, while his 
undaunted soul soared above the tempest it evoked, and, calm 
and clear, directed the storm. From such a life and such a 
scene as this. General Pickett and his brothers turned and fol- 



80 READING AND ORATORY. 

lowed their noble leader into the quiet, humdrum, uncongenial 
world of daily toil, setting us all an example of manly struggle 
with adversity that has never, no, never been surpassed. 

Right sure that no one will question the mettle of his man- 
hood, it remains only to say to those who knew George Pickett 
but as the iron man of Gettysburg, that his soul was not lacking 
in the womanly softness that offsets and graces the true knightly 
ideal. Not only genial and generous and kindly, but tender 
was our knight; tender and loving, not in his family relations 
only — oh, Jt? tender, ji? loving! — but affectionate and soft-hearted 
as a girl to his friends also. I wish I dared call for a letter 
that is in this house now, resting against a man's heart, whence 
I saw it reverently removed this morning and read with tear- 
ful eye and heaving breast and quivering voice by one who, 
just before our hero died, received this last sweet token of his 
sympathy in a great sorrow. I assure you, I have seldom, if 
ever, read or heard such a letter: its gentle, loving sympathy 
brought fresh to mind the exquisite figure of Holy Writ for the 
Divine ministries of consolation, — "as one whom his mother 
comforteth." 

I trust I am not tearing aside the veil too far — I know I am 
not doing it with irreverent hand — but I fain would show you 
the man I see lying on his bed of pain and death — but two 
short hours from death itself — stretching forth his weak arms 
and throwing them about the neck of a beloved relative, who 
had just arrived, and drawing him down till the two hearts and 
faces met, and the two soldiers kissed each other, while the 
watchers about his couch were melted in uncontrollable emo- 
tion. And then, if you could hear, as I have heard, of his firm, 
sweet command of himself and of all his surroundings — no 
flicker of intellect, no terror of soul, but deepening calm as the 
shadows deepened, until at last the man we mourn this evening 
turned him gently over, and saying "Good-night," was gone. 

ROBERT STILES. 



READING AND ORATORY. 8l 



THE OLD CANOE. 

WHERE the rocks are gray, and the shore is steep, 
And the waters below look dark and deep; 
Where the rugged pine in its lonely pride 
Leans gloomily over the murky tide; 
Where the reeds and rushes are long and lank, 
And the weeds grow thick on the winding bank; 
Where the shadow is heavy the whole day through — 
There lies at its moorings the old canoe. 

The useless paddles are idly dropped, 

Like a sea-bird's wing that the storm has lopped, 

And crossed on the railing one o'er one, 

Like the folded hands when the work is done; 

While busily back and forth between, 

The spider stretches his silvery screen, 

And the solemn owl, with its dull tu-whoo, 

Settles down on the side of the old canoe. 

The stern half-sunk in the slimy wave 

Rots slowly away in its living grave, 

And the green moss creeps o'er its dull decay, 

Hiding its mouldering dust away, 

Like the hand that plants o'er the tomb a flower. 

Or the ivy that mantles the falling tower; 

While many a blossom of loveliest hue 

Springs up o'er the stern of the old canoe. 

The currentless waters are dead and still. 

The twilight-wind plays with the boat at will, 

And lazily in and out again 

It floats the length of its rusty chain; 

Like the weary march of the hands of Time 

That meet and part at the noontide chime. 

As the shore is kissed at each turn anew, 

By the dripping bow of the old canoe. 



82 READING AND ORATORY. 

Oh, many a time, with careless hand, 
I have pushed it away from the pebbly strand! 
And paddled it down where the stream runs quick, 
Where the whirls are wild, and the eddies thick. 
And laughed, as I leaned o'er the rocky side, 
And looked below in the broken tide, 
To see that the faces and boats were two 
That were mirrored back from the old canoe. 

But now, as I lean o'er the crumbling side 

And look below in the sluggish tide, 

The face that I see there is graver grown, 

And the laugh that I hear has a sober tone, 

And the hands that lent to the light skiff wings 

Have grown familiar with sterner things. 

But I love to think of the hours that sped 

As I rocked where the whirls their white spray shed. 

Ere the blossom waved or the green grass grew 

O'er the mouldering stern of the old canoe. 

ANONYMOUS, 



GEN. LEE'S FAREWELL TO HIS COMMAND. 

Headquarters Army Northern Virginia, [ 
April lo, 1865. ) 

AFTER four years of arduous service, marked by unsur- 
passed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern 
Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers 
and resources. 

I need not tell the survivors of so many hard-fought battles, 
who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented 
to this result from no distrust of them; but, feeling that valor 
and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate 
for the loss that would have attended the continuation of the 
contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those 
whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. 



GENERAL LEE'S FAREWELL. 83 

By the terms of agreement, officers and men can return to 
their homes, and remain there until exchanged. 

You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from 
the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly 
pray that a merciful God will extend to you His blessing and 
protection. 

With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devo- 
tion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind 
and generous consideration of myself, I bid you an affectionate 

farewell. r. e. lee, General. 

A country which has given birth to men like him, and those who followed him, may- 
look the chivalry of Europe in the face without shame; for the fatherlands of Sidney 
and of Bayard never produced a nobler soldier, gentleman, and Christian, than General 
Robert Edmund Lee —London Standard. This illustrious man was born at Stratford, 
on the Potomac, in Westmoreland Co., Va., on the 19th of January, 1807. Of pure 
Norman blood, the long line of the Lees may be traced back to a certain Launcelot 
Lee, of Loudon, in France, who accompanied William the Conqueror upon his expe 
dition to England, and, after the battle of Hastings, was rewarded for his services by 
an estate in Essex. From that memorable date the name of Lee occurs continually iq 
English annals, and always in honorable connection. There is Lionel Lee, who fought 
by Coeur de Lion's side in Palestine, and who for his gallantry at Acre and in other 
battles with the inhdel was on his return home made the first Earl of Litchfield, and 
presented by the king with the estate of Ditchlcy; subsequently held, as all the readers 
of Walter Scott must remember, by that indomitable old knight, Sir Henry Lee, who 
figures so conspicuously in Woodstock. 

Then comes Richard Lee, who accompanied the unfortunate Earl of Surrey against 
the Scotch Borders in 1542 Two of the family were Knights Companions of the 
Garter, and so distinguished themselves as to have their banners suspended in St 
George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, with the Lee coat-of-arms emblazoned thereon, and 
the significant family motto, Non incautus futuri. Coming down to the time of the 
first Charles, we find the Lees in Shropshire, all staunch cavaliers. Then it was that the 
accomplished Richard Lee came over to the colony of Virginia as secretary of the 
king's privy council. He is described as " a man of good stature, comely visage, enter- 
prising genius, a sound head, and generous nature," words we may apply literally to 
the person and character of his world-renowned descendant. With this gentleman the 
noble stock of the V'irginia Lees originated. 

Robert E. Lee was the son of Henry Lee, the celebrated cavalry leader of the 
Revolution— better known as " Light-Horse Harry"— and Anne Hill Carter, daughter 
of Charles Carter, of Shirley, on the James. After a thorough classical and mathema- 
tical training, he was admitted into the U S. Military .Academy at West Point in 1825, 
and graduated in 1S29, second in his class, and without ever having received a demerit; 
was assigned to duty as Second Lieutenant of Engineers; married in 1832 Mary Custis, 
daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of General Washington, 
promoted to First Lieutenant 1836, and to Captain 1838; served in Mexican War (1846- 
47) as Chief Engineer of General Scott's army with such distinction that he was brevet- 
ted Colonel; was Superintendent of West Point from 1852 to 1855; commanded in per- 
son the detachment of U. S. Marines which captured the notorious John Brown at 
Harper's Ferry, in 1859; appointed Colonel of Cavalry March, 1861, butresifjned .\pril 



84 READING AND ORATORY. 

20, to offer his services to Iiis native State, which had seceded April 17, i86t, he was 
immediately appointed by Virginia Major-General and Commander-in-Chief of all her 
forces. His military career need not here be traced further than to say he entered the 
Confederate service as Brigadier-General, and surrendered at Appomattox, April 9, 
1865, Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the Confederacy. He carried the des- 
tiny of the Confederacy on the point of his sword, and with his surrender it fell. 

Refusing all gifts of houses, estates, and money, which were offered him in this country 
and Europe, and declining positions of princely salary, he accepted, in the summer of 
1865, the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), Lex- 
ington, Va., having resolved to consecrate the remainder of his life to the great work 
of training the youth of the land he had loved and served so well. Thus again did he 
illustrate that precept which he early gave his sons, and which had been the leading 
factor in his own character — that " Duty is the sublimest word in the English language." 
He died in Lexington, October 12, 1870, and his remains were buried in the college 
chapel, where they still rest. Just before his death he edited the third edition of his 
father's Memoirs of the War ofjb^ to which he prefixed a life of the author. 

Transcendent as was his military genius — ranking him among the greatest captains of 
the world— it was as a man that he was truly great. For he possessed all those virtues 
and graces which dignify and adorn human nature, and which are essential to moral 
grandeur and sublimity of character. 



MANNER IN DEBATE. 

CONCILIATION is the great art of debate. In a delibera- 
tive assembly, where the majority of wills is to be obtained, 
it is astonishing that any man, having the reputation of talents, 
should so far mistake his aim and his object, as to be deficient 
in courtesy to his associates. The authority of intellect is dif- 
ficult enough to be sustained, even with all the blandishments 
of rhetoric. It is not like personal strength and majesty, pal- 
pable to the eye — nor like the soul-subduing fascination of 
beauty, thrilling the fibres, it is an authority fou7ided 07i opinio7i, 
on the opinion of your associates, as impalpable as the thoughts 
which cherish and support it; an ideal supremacy which men 
readily deny when they choose, and always acknowledge with 
reluctance. Therefore, is it an authority which can only per- 
manently and happily rest upon the affections of discerning 
men, who are your contemporaries. 

You can gain the affection of no man by insulting him; you 
impress no idea of your superiority by rudeness. Frowns are 
the arguments, and threats are the persuasives, of bullies. The 



ART AND ITS INFLUENCE. 8$ 

brave despise, and the wise ridicule them. They are invariable 
symptoms of surrender and defeat. 

An angry, supercilious speaker, on a legislative floor, is a posi- 
tive injury to his constituents. Invest him with what renown 
you please, let his praise for mind be trumpeted from the forest 
to the sea-shore, it avails nothing; place him in a situation 
where he may be rude with impunity, and without the danger of 
impeachment, but do not send him to a deliberative assembly, 
to mar the beautiful art of persuasion with the very weapons of 
rhetoric. william crofts. 



ART AND ITS INFLUENCE. 

ART is the exponent of the best of our feelings and the 
highest of our thoughts. It is, in its more perfect results, an 
outburst of that divine afflatus, which has been breathed into 
every human soul, to go back to the eternal source of all beauty; 
and no really great people ever lived without leaving some crea- 
tions of art as testimonials to posterity. 

The site of Sparta, the ideal of republican simplicity, the 
exemplar of devoted patriotism in Greece, is sought for in vain 
by the traveller to that Holy Land of genius and of art. A 
stolid herdsman, shepherding his few straggling goats, may 
point you to the place where she is supposed to have stood. 
But no monument, no ruin even, of Art, is there to tell you 
that on that spot Sparta once had lived, had fought, had sacri- 
ficed to freedom and to patriotism. And why this irredeemable 
death? Why, but because Sparta despised and rejected all 
arts save the bootless art of war? Why, but because she had 
nothing — painting, sculpture, or architecture — to entitle her to 
thelifeof centuries after her material life had passed away! Noth- 
ing out of which she could build herself a monument to speak 
for her to the after-ages of the world, and to point a glorious 
answer to their inquiry. 



86 READING AND ORATORY. 

On the other hand, look at Athens, her rival in political and 
military power, and her mistress in all the supremacies of states- 
manship and eloquence, of poetry and of art. Like her own 
Niobe in her" voiceless woe," with her children stricken round 
her by the shafts of the angry god, Athens fell, and with her 
fell the goodly progeny of arts which she had fostered for the 
wonderment of the world. She fell; but falling left behind her, 
even in those ruins of beauty which challenge the perfections 
of modern art, a monument to her high glories which will live 
forever. Time itself has worked its worst on her devoted head. 
The brutal Roman plundered the hoards of artistic magnifi- 
cence which eight centuries of civilization had industriously 
gathered. The barbarian Gaul gleaned where the Roman had 
pillaged. Nay, the stupid Turk, in a supreme violation of the 
holiness of art, profaned the sanctuaries in whch God through 
the plastic hand of the artist had deposited his best specimens 
of the Beautiful. Yet Athens still lives — lives the life of even 
ruined art. Still lives in the shattered beauties of the Venus 
of Milo; still lives in the triglyphs of her Parthenon; still lives in 
the gay acanthus of her marble shafts! 

And yet there are some, the sceptic and the detractor, who 
will seriously tell us that the reign of art has either passed, or is 
passing away. If it be so, it must be a renewed utterance of 
the voices of the Janiculum which once declared that the " gods 
were passing away." It must be that God himself is passing 
away under the dissolving torch of our material interests. But 
He is not passing — He cannot pass away. He is the ever-Hving 
Author of the Beautiful, and the artist must come up more pow- 
erful, more holy than ever, in His conquering and sovereign 
train. The altar still stands, and the sacred fire still burns be- 
fore the shrine. Though in discouragement, though in derision, 
it may be, faithful Levites will still think, create, and work 
under its better influences. True that, in our days of utilita- 
rian influences, men skulk away from the worship of the Beauti- 
ful as if it were a loathsome infirmity; but the day is near at 
hand when we will fall back on the due realities of things: to 
the detractor, the realities of the dust and the worm; to the 



SOUTHERN VIEW OF SLAVERY. 87 

artist, who dreams dreams, and then gives them the subtance of 
beauty, the realities of mind. Alexander dimitry. 

Alexander Dimitry, LL.D., linguist and scholar, was born in New Orleans, Feb- 
ruary 7, 1805. His father was a Greek, and his grandmother an Indian woman of the 
Alibamon Tribe. At ten years of age his knowledge of Classic Greek and Latin was 
marvellous, while he spoke Modern Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, and English. He 
graduated with distinction at Georgetown College, D. C; was first English editor of Aew 
Orleans Bee: in 1847, as Superintendent of Public Instruction, organized the admirable 
ante-bellum system of Free Schools of Louisiana; appointed in 1854 translator in U. S. De- 
partment of State, Washington; in 1859, sent as Minister to Central America by Presi- 
dent Buchanan; upon commencement of hostilities came South and filled during the 
war a high position in Postoffice Department, Richmond. His numerous essays, 
lectures and tales, though of great merit have never been collected and published. 



SOUTHERN VIEW OF SLAVERY. 

IF I have at all comprehended the elements which should en- 
ter into the determination of this momentous problem of 
social welfare and public authority, the existence of African 
Slavery amongst us furnishes no just occasion for self-reproach; 
much less for the presumptuous rebuke of our fellow-man. As 
individuals, we have cause to humble ourselves before God, for 
the imperfect discharge of our duties in this, and in every other 
relation of life; but for its justice and morality as an element 
of our social polity, we may confidently appeal to those future 
ages, which, when the bedimming mists of passion and preju- 
dice have vanished, will examine it in the pure light of truth, 
and pronounce the final sentence of impartial History. Beyond 
our own borders there has been no sober and intelligent esti- 
mate of its distinctive features; no just apprehension of the 
nature, extent, and permanence of the disparities between the 
races, or of the fatal consequences to the slave of a freedom 
which would expose him to the unchecked selfishness of a su- 
perior civilization, no conception approaching to the reality of 
the power which has been exerted by a public sentiment, spring- 
ing from Christian principle, and sustained by the universal in- 
stincts of self-mterest, in tempering the severity of its restraints, 



88 READING AND ORATORY. 

and impressing upon it the mild character of a patriarchal re- 
lation; no rational anticipation of the improvement of which 
the negro would be capable under our form of servitude, if 
those who now nurse the wild and mischievous dream of peace- 
ful emancipation should lend all their energies to the mainte- 
nance of the only social system under which his progressive 
amelioration appears possible. 

African slavery is no relic of barbarism to which we cling 
from the ascendency of semi-civilized tastes, habits, and prin- 
ciples; but an adjustment of the social and political relations of 
the races, consistent with the purest justice, commended by the 
highest expediency, and sanctioned by a comprehensive and en- 
lightened humanity. It has no doubt been sometimes abused 
by the base and wicked passions of our fallen nature to pur- 
poses of cruelty and wrong: but where is the school of civili- 
zation from which the stern and wholesome discipline of suf- 
fering has been banished ? or the human landscape not sad- 
dened by a dark flowing stream of sorrow? Its history, when 
fairly written, well be its ample vindication. It has weaned a 
race of savages from superstition and idolatry, imparted to them 
a general knowledge of the precepts of the true religion, im- 
planted in their bosoms sentiments of humanity and principles 
of virtue, developed a taste for the arts and enjoyments of civi- 
lized life, given an unknown dignity and elevation to their type 
of physical, moral, and intellectual man, and for two centuries, 
during which the humanizing process has taken place, made 
for their subsistence and comfort a more bountiful provision 
than was ever before enjoyed in any age or country of the 
world by a laboring class. If tried by the test which we apply 
to other institutions, — the whole sum of its results, — there is no 
agency of civilization which has accomplished so much, in the 
same time, for the happiness and advancement of mankind. 

JAMES p. HOLCOMBE. 



READING AND ORATORY. 89 



THE STATE OF THE UNION, 1861. 

I AM solemnly impressed, Mr. Speaker, with the condition in 
which I actually find myself. In travelling hither from my 
home, more than two thousand miles distant, for this Capitol, 
for the discharge of a public duty, my foot pressed no spot of 
foreign territory; my eye rested upon not one material object, 
during my journey, that was not a part and parcel of my coun- 
try, as I fondly deemed it. When we assembled together, so 
far as I know, every State and Territory was represented upon 
this floor. The great fabric of the Government was then com- 
plete; but now how changed! When I go hence, it will be to find 
my pathway intercepted by new and strange nationalities. With- 
out ever having wandered from my native land, I must traverse 
foreign countries, if I would return. 

I might be excused for doubting my own identity. Surely I 
may be pardoned for having involuntarily prayed that this 
might prove a troubled and protracted dream. Yet it is too 
true — too many evidences force conviction of the sad reality. 
But a few days past, Mr. Speaker, the noble temple of American 
liberty stood complete in all its parts — stood in all the majesty 
of its vast proportions, and in the glory of its apparent strength 
and beauty of construction; not a pillar missing or a joint dis- 
severed. And its votaries were gathered about the altar, worship- 
ping, as was their wont, with hopeful hearts. Forebodings were 
felt, and predictions made of the coming storm and the destruc-- 
tion of the temple. And the storm has come and still rages — the 
temple still stands, but shorn of its fair proportions and marred 
in its beauty. Pillar after pillar has fallen away. And though 
its proud dome still points to heaven, it is reeling in mid-air like 
a drunken man, while its solid foundations are shaken as with 
an earthquake. Yet there are worshippers about the shrine, 
and I am among them. I have been called by warning voices 
to come out and escape the impending danger — I have been 
wooed by entreaties and plied with threats. But, sir, neither 
entreaties nor threats, hope of reward nor dread of danger, 



90 READING AND ORATORY. 

shall tear me away until I lay hold of the horns of the altar of 
my country, and implore Heaven in its own good time to still 
this storm of civil strife, and through such human agency as may 
be best again uprear the fallen pillars to their original position, 
that they may, through long ages, contribute to the strength 
and beauty of the noblest structure yet devised by man. 

A.J.HAMILTON. 

Andrew Jackson Hamilton was born in Madison Co., Ala., January 28, 1815, 
and received only a common-school education; read law and was admitted to the bar in 
1841. In 1846 he emigrated to Texas, practised his profession successfully, and in 1850 
was appointed Attorney-General of the State by Gov. P. H.Bell; in 1858 he was elected 
to Congress as an independent candidate on the platform of the Union and the Constitu- 
tion, and in 1861 strenuously opposed the secession of Texas — denying both the right 
and the policy of secession. When martial law was declared and the oath of alle- 
giance to Confederate States demanded, he went North, and in 1862 was appointed Mil- 
itary Governor of Texas with the rank of Brigadier-General of Volunteers, an empty 
honor, as the Federals did not occupy the State. President Johnson appointed him Provi- 
sional Governor in 1865, and to him Texas owes the reorganization of her civil govern- 
ment. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1867, and for two years a 
Judge of the Supreme Court. He died at Austin. 

As a popular orator he had no equal in Texas; and to his influence is mainly due the 
mitigation in that State of those evils of Reconstruction which so sorely afflicted other 
Southern States. 



THE YOUNG WIDOW. 

SHE is modest but not bashful, 
Free and easy but not bold, 
Like an apple, ripe and mellow. 

Not too young and not too old. 
Half inviting, half repulsing, 

Now advancing, and now shy; — 
There is mischief in her dimple — 
There is danger in her eye. 

She has studied human nature, 
She is schooled in all her arts. 

She has taken her diploma 
As the Mistress of all Hearts. 



THE YOUNG WIDOW. 9I 

She can tell the very moment 

When to sigh, and when to smile — 

O a maid is often charming, 
But a widow all the while! 

Are you sad? How very serious 

Will her smiling face become. 
Are you angry? She is wretched. 

Drooping, sighing, tearful, dumb. 
Are you mirthful? How her laughter, 

Silver-sounding, will ring out : — 
She can lure, and catch, and play you, 

As the angler does the trout. 

Ye old bachelors of forty! 

Who have grown so bald and wise — 
Young Americans of twenty! 

With the love-locks in your eyes: — 
You may practise all the lessons 

Taught by Cupid since the fall, 
But I know a little widow 

Who can win and fool you all! 

ROBERT JOSSELYN. 

Robert Josselyn, poet,was born in Massachusetts, December 16, 1810, educated in Ver- 
mont, and admitted to the bar at Winchester, Va., 1831; then emigrated to Mississippi, 
where he practised law, served in the Legislature, was District Attorney, and for awhile 
engaged in journalism. Entered Mexican War as private in ist Mississippi Rifles, Col. 
Jefferson Davis, but was appointed Captain and Commissary by President Polk. 
At expiration of term of service resigned; was State Commissioner of Mississippi, 
1850-58: and clerk in Treasury Department, Washington, i860, but resigned when 
Mississippi seceded. President Davis appointed him his private secretary at Mont- 
gomery, but he resigned after a year's service, on account of ill-health, and was made 
Secretary of Arizona Territory, as organized under the Confederacy. Since the war 
he has resided at Austin, Texas. His published works are: The Faded Flower^ and 
Other Poems: Boston, 1848; A Satire on the Times -St. Louis, 1875; and The Co- 
quette; A Drama in Five Acts: Austin, 1878. He is the author of many fugitive 
poems, two of which, The Girl with the Calico Dress and The i'oung ll'ido7v, have 
kept their places in the newspapers for more than twenty-five years, though rarely 
credited to the author. 



92 READING AND ORATORY. 



ADDRESS BEFORE EMORY COLLEGE 

SOCIETIES. 

IT is amongst the first order of men that Henry Clay will be 
assigned a place: that great man to whom we have had such 
frequent allusion during these exercises, and whose recent loss 
the nation still mourns. 

Mr. Clay's success, and those civic achievements which will 
render his name as lasting as the history of his country, were 
the result of nothing so much as that element of character which 
I have denominated energy. Thrown upon life at an early age, 
without any means or resources save his natural powers and 
abilities, and without the advantages of anything above a com- 
mon-school education, he had nothing to rely upon but himself, 
and nothing upon which to place a hope but his own exertions. 
But, fired with a high and noble ambition, he resolved, young 
as he was, and cheerless as were his prospects, to meet and 
surmount every embarrassment and obstacle by which he was 
surrounded. His aims and objects were high and worthy the 
greatest efforts; they were not to secure the laurels won upon the 
battle-field, but those wreaths which adorn the brow of the wise, 
the firm, the sagacious, and far-seeing statesman. The honor 
and glory of his life was — 

" Th' applause of list'ning- senates to command, 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
And read his history in a nation's eyes!" 

This great end he most successfully accomplished. And if he 
had aspirations for a position, in his own estimation, even higher, 
yet no one now, or hereafter, can ever indulge the opinion 
that its attainment would have added anything to that full 
measure of fame with which he has descended to the tomb! 
In his life and character you have a most striking example of 
what energy and indomitable perseverance can do, even when 
opposed by the most adverse circumstances. 

Young gentlemen, I have given you this brief sketch of some 



ADDRESS BEFORE EMORY COLLEGE SOCIETIES. 93 

of those elements of character which may be deemed essential 
for success in those exciting scenes and uncertain conflicts, 
through which life's journey will lead you. One word, in con- 
clusion, by way of application. 

It is the reply of Cardinal Richelieu upon a memorable 
occasion, as we have it in the play. In one of the most critical 
points in the fortunes of the Cardinal, as well as of 
France, it became a matter of the utmost importance that a 
particular paper should be obtained by him to be presented to 
the King. The Cardinal was prime minister, as he had been for 
a number of years. A conspiracy had been formed on the part 
of some of the nobles, not only against him, but against the 
throne itself. These nobles had succeeded, as part of their 
plan, in alienating the King from his minister. The paper con- 
tained the positive evidence of the conspiracy and treachery of 
his and the King's enemies. His fate, and the fate of his 
sovereign, depended upon his getting immediate possession of 
the paper. He was a man of energy, and had never before been 
thwarted, or unsuccessful in any enterprise. For years he had 
ruled France with almost absolute sway. At this juncture, 
when nothing could save his fortune but the paper in question, 
Richelieu called to his assistance a young man of spirit and 
courage, and enjoined upon him the arduous and difficult task 
of securing and bringing to him the packet. But the young 
man, being duly impressed with the importance of his mission, 
and providing in his mind for the various contingencies that 
might happen, says, " If I fail" — 

Richelieu, not allowing the sentence to be finished, and 
stopping the utterance of a possibility of a doubt touching his 
success, replies: 

''Fail! Fail! 
In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserv^es 
For a bright manhood, there is no such word 
Ks—Fail!'' 

So say I to you in entering upon that career that lies before 
you. If, at any time, fears and doubts beset you as to your 
success; if the world grows cold; if friends forsake and enemies 
combine; if difficulties multiply, and even environ you; if the 



94 READING AND ORATORY. 

future assume its darkest robes, without a ray of light or hope, 
— never despair. Never give up. Banish your apprehensions. 
Rely upon yourselves. And recollect that to the man who 
knows himself thoroughly, who governs himself properly, who 
stands firmly on principle, who has a fixed purpose to do some- 
thing worthy of future remembrance, and who applies himself 
with energy in its execution, there is no such word as Fail! 

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



ON THE BILL TO REPAVE PENNSYLVANIA 
AVENUE. 

BUT, Mr. Chairman, I have heard one reason very fre- 
quently urged for the passage of this bill, which candor 
compels me to admit almost convinced me that we ought to 
appropriate not only this sum of $180,000, but any other amount 
that might be necessary to repave Pennsylvania Avenue at the 
very earliest possible period of time; and that is, that it is so 
much used by the horde of office-holders that throng the thor- 
oughfares of this city, in numbers almost equal to the hosts 
which were hurled with Lucifer from the battlements of heaven. 
For, sir, if there is a being on this earth for whose comfort and 
convenience I entertain the profoundest solicitude, if there is 
one whose smallest want stirs my sympathetic soul to its se- 
renest depths, it is your ofiice-holder, your public functionary. 
When I see one of that noble army of martyrs bidding adieu 
to his home and all the sweets of private life, for which he is 
so pre-eminently fitted by nature, to immolate himself upon the 
altar of his country's service for four long years, Homer's 
touching picture of the last sad scene between the noble Hec- 
tor and his weeping family rises before my sympathetic imag- 
ination. When I see him plunging recklessly into an office, of 
the duties of which he is profoundly and defiantly ignorant, I 
am reminded of the self-sacrificing heroism of Curtius when he 
leaped into the yawning gulf which opened in the Roman 



BALAKLAVA. 95 

forum. When I behold him sadly contemplating his majestic 
features in one of those gorgeous and costly mirrors, fur- 
nished him aLthe public expense, my heart goes out to him in 
sympathy. When I see him seated sorrowfully at a miserable 
repast of sea-rterrapin and champagne, my very bowels yearn 
for him. And when I see him performing perhaps the only 
duty for which he is fully competent — signing his monthly pay- 
receipt — I am so overwhelmed with pity for his miserable con- 
dition, that I wish I were in his place. 

When such considerations as these, sir, have come crowding 
upon my mind, appealing to every generous sentiment of my 
better nature; when I have thought how the official nerves of 
our poor neglected public servants are racked by " the car rat- 
tling o'er the stony street," I have felt, under the sudden im- 
pulse of the moment, that we ought to tear up the old cobble- 
stone pavement on the Avenue and supply its place with one 
of the new-fashioned patent wooden ones, over which the 
splendid carriages of our government officials, with their coats- 
of-arms and liveried outriders might glide as smoothly and 
noiselessly as the aerial car of the fairy queen through the rose- 
tinted clouds of the upper ether. j. proctor knott. 



BALAKLAVA. 



OTHE charge at Balaklava! 
O that rash and fatal charge! 
Never was a fiercer, braver, 
Than that charge at Balaklava, 

On the battle's bloody marge! 
All the day the Russian columns. 

Fortress huge, and blazing banks. 
Poured their dread destructive volumes 

On the French and English ranks, - 

On the gallant allied ranks! 
Earth and sky seemed rent asunder 



96 READING AND ORATORY. 

By the loud incessant thunder! 
When a strange but stern command- 
Needless, heedless, rash command — 
Came to Lucan's little band, — 
Scarce six hundred men and horses 
Of those vast contending forces: — 
** England's lost unless you save her! 
Charge the pass at Balaklava!" 
O that rash and fatal charge, 
On the battle's bloody marge! 

Far away the Russian Eagles 

Soar o'er smoking hill and dell, 

And their hordes, like howling beagles, 
Dense and countless, round them yell! 

Thundering cannon, deadly mortar, 

Sweep the field in every quarter! 

Never, since the days of Jesus, 

Trembled so the Chersonesus! 

Here behold the Gallic Lilies — 
Stout St. Louis' golden Lilies — 
Float as erst at old Ramillies! 
And beside them, lo! the Lion! 
With her trophied Cross, is flying! 

Glorious standards ! — shall they waver 

On the field of Balaklava? 

No, by Heavens! at that command — 

Sudden, rash, but stern command — 

Charges Lucan's little band! 

Brave Six Hundred! lo! they charge 
On the battle's bloody marge! 

Down yon deep and skirted valley, 

Where the crowded cannon play, — 

Where the Czar's fierce cohorts rally, 

Cossack, Calmuck, savage Kalli, — 

Down that gorge they swept away! 

Down that new Thermopylae, 



BALAKLAVA. 97 

Flashing swords and helmets see! 
Underneath the iron shower, 

To the brazen cannon's jaws, 
Heedless of their deadly power, 

Press they without fear or pause, — 

To the very cannon's jaws! 
Gallant Nolan, brave as Roland 

At the field of Roncesvalles, 

Dashes down the fatal valley, 
Dashes on the bolt of death, 
Shouting with his latest breath, 
"Charge, then, gallants! do not waver, 
Charge the pass at Balaklava!" 

O that rash and fatal charge, 

On the battle's bloody marge! 

Now the bolts of volleyed thunder 
Rend that little band asunder. 
Steed and rider wildly screaming, 

Screaming wildly, sink away; 
Late so proudly, proudly gleaming, 

Now but lifeless clods of clay, — 

Now but bleeding clods of clay! 
Never, since the days of Jesus, 
Saw such sight the Chersonesus! 
Yet your remnant, brave Six Hundred, 
Presses onward, onward, onward. 

Till they storm the bloody pass, — • 

Till, like brave Leonidas, 

They storm the deadly pass! 
Sabering Cossack, Calmuck, Kalli, 
In that wild shot-rended valley, — 
Drenched with fire and blood, like lava. 
Awful pass at Balaklava! 

O that rash and fatal charge, 

On that battle's bloody marge! 



98 READING AND ORATORY. 

For now Russia's rallied forces. 
Swarming hordes of Cossack horses, 
Trampling o'er the reeking corses, 

Drive the thinned assailants back. 

Drive the feeble remnant back, 

O'er their late heroic track! 
Vain, alas! now rent and sundered, 
Vain your struggles, brave Two Hundred! 
Thrice your number lie asleep. 
In that valley dark and deep. 
Weak and wounded you retire 
From that hurricane of fire, — 
That tempestuous storm of fire, — 
But no soldiers firmer, braver. 

Ever trod the field of fame, 
Than the Knights of Balaklava, — 

Honor to each hero's name! 
Yet their country long shall mourn 
For her ranks so rashly shorn, — 
So gallantly, but madly shorn 

In that fierce and fatal charge. 

On the battle's bloody marge. 

ALEXANDER B. MEEK. 

Alexander Beaufort Meek, jurist and poet, was born in Charleston, S. C, July 
17, 1814, and died in Columbus, Miss., November 30, 1865. He moved to Alabama in 
1819, and graduated at the University of that State in 1833. In the Seminole War he 
was Lieutenant of Volunteers: at its close became Attorney-General of Alabama; was 
Judge of County Court, 1842-44; member of the Legislature and Speaker of the House 
in 1859. He was the father of the public school system of the State. In letters he be- 
came no less distinguished, his chief productions being Red Eagle^ a heroic poem of 
considerable length: Romantic Passages in Southwesiern History; and a volume en- 
titled Songs and Poems of the South. Researches in the early history of the South- 
west engaged much of his attention, and he left a manuscript /^zj^^ry 0/ Alabama ^ 
nearly completed, which it is hoped will yet be published. 



READING AND ORATORY. 99 



THE IDEA OF A SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY 
DELUSIVE. 

I have never been able, Mr. Speaker, to regard with any 
favor this idea of a Southern Confederacy, even in its merely 
economic aspects, and I am not able with any complacency to 
consider the possibility of my own State being its frontier line. 
I cannot hope for its permanency, based, as it must be, upon the 
recognized right of secession, and the consequent ability of any 
of its component parts at any moment to destroy it. Nor do I 
desire to see the great mechanical and industrial interests of my 
State and city subjected to the policy of the Cotton States, 
which are so likely to be its element of controlling power. Free 
trade and direct ta.xation do not harmonize with the interests, 
nor accord with the temper of Maryland; and I have little 
faith in it. Born in revolt, cradled in passion, nurtured upon 
excitement; overriding freedom of opinion; disregarding indi- 
vidual rights; burdened with taxation; environed by fearful 
perils in the present, and destined to encounter more terrible 
troubles in the future; based, as its foundation stone, upon 
the right of any one of its component parts at any moment to 
secede from the structure, and thus break it up, I regard its 
promises as delusive, and its results as " Dead Sea fruits, that 
turn to ashes on the lips"; and to me the " gorgeous palaces and 
cloud-clapped towers" that it presents to the dazzled gaze of 
the youthful and ambitious, are as the sunlit battlements and 
lengthening vistas of some treacherous mirage, that flees into 
airy nothing before the straining gaze and the advancing step 
of the desert traveller. Rather give to me, and to my people, 
the government that has been tested by eighty years of success- 
ful trial. Let not my ears be greeted with the music of the Mar- 
seillaise, that stirs no pulse of my American blood. Flaunt not 
before my eyes the flag of a divided nationality, that rouses no 
emotion of my American heart; but let me and my people, I 
pray you, go down to our graves with the consecrated melodies 



100 READING AND ORATORY. 

of the nation ringing in our ears, and over us the dome of the 
Union, glorious with all its constellated stars. 

J. MORRISON HARRIS. 

J. Morrison Harris, one of the most popular living orators of Baltimore, was born in 
that city about fifty years ago, and educated at Lafayette College. Hp made law his 
profession and soon acquired prominence. In 1854 he entered Congress and served six 
years — his term closing in the stormy session of i860, in which he took the strongest 
grounds, on right and policy, against secession, and in favor of a peaceful settlement of 
difficulties. After the war he resumed the practice of law, and in 1875 was the Citizens' 
Reform candidate for Governor of Maryland, but was defeated. 



TRIBUTE TO VIRGINIA. 

THE honorable Senator from Illinois says, that "it would 
not interfere materially with Virginia, whether certain 
resolutions presented to her Legislature were constitutional or 
not." I cannot restrain my astonishment at this expression. 
My knowledge that the Senator is eminently patriotic increases 
my surprise. Virginia indifferent to the Constitution, while she 
holds in her bosom the ashes and cherishes in her heart the 
memories of Madison and Marshall! The Mother of Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, Monroe, Tyler, Taylor, Scott, Maury, Thomas, 
the theme for a jest, the subject of a taunt! When the Senator 
or myself, or thousands like us, shall have achieved for liberty 
and glory a shadow of what Virginia has, then a jeer or slur 
upon her great name may have some grace. 

Has the Senator forgotten how much this nation owes to 
Virginia? He must for the moment have forgotten that she 
had given to the Union the States of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois. Had the Senator reflected that his own State was 
one of the monuments of Virginia's patriotism, these words 
could never have fallen from his lips. Nor, sir, are these a 
tithe of her contributions to the Republic. She has borne 
seven Presidents, who at the head of the Government have 
illustrated her devotion to liberty. She has nurtured on her 
breast the soldiers who have covered your arms with renown, 
the sailors who have brightened your flag with honor, the 



THE GEORGIA LEADERS AFTER THE WAR. lOI 

scholars who have extended the conquest of science from the 
bottom of the sea to the verge of the stars. Her trophies, her 
memories, her great names, her priceless virtues are before the 
world; they are the brightest jewels of the Republic — they are 
the noblest heritages of humanity. I pray the day may never 
come when the great spirit at Mount Vernon shall not protect 
her from insult and avert her from error. Her proud sorrows 
are sublime, and, like her glories, will be immortal. When she 
sheathed her sword and returned to the Union, her constancy 
to her national duties and her loyalty to her sister States were 
renewed with all their original vigor and truth. Her care for 
the Constitution and her devotion to the rights of man had 
never slumbered. 

Great State I Whatever is grand and patriotic and excel- 
lent should be compared to thee. When thy name does not 
inspire the respect, excite the admiration, and kindle the affec- 
tions of American patriots, the love of liberty and of country 
will be expiring in our hearts. MATT. w. ransom. 



THE GEORGIA LEADERS AFTER THE WAR. 

THE Georgia of to-day, in some respects, is not the Georgia 
she was. Her living men are the equals of those of any 
former time ; but having expended their greatest endeavors in be- 
half of a cause that was as unfortunate as it was dear, overcome, 
impoverished, bereft of many things without which life seems 
of little value, and, after four years of such bereavement, yet 
proscribed and persecuted, they are away from public places, 
and, like Achilles in his tent, view from afar the actions of those 
who appear to be heroes only because the truly heroic are with- 
out their armor and absent from the field. Not that it is profit- 
less to contemplate these living men in their quiet lives. For 
an important lesson may be learned in beholding what a brave 
mind may suffer, and yet, instead of losing any of its virtue, 
become braver through affliction. The lives that some of them 



I02 READING AND ORATORY. 

are leading now will be compared hereafter with the best of 
any period. The dignity with which they endure proscription, 
the serenity with which they contemplate the loss of all but 
honor, the fidelity with which they observe the pledges exacted 
by those to whom they surrendered under promises of peace 
and security; their deep grief, not for themselves, not so much 
for their children and friends, whether living or dead; but for 
their country — their whole country — which they long to see re- 
united and at peace upon the principles of right and justice, — 
aill these are a lesson which we may study with ever-increasing 
profit. 

Some of them, like Fabricius and Cincinnatus, are following 
the plough and eking a frugal living from their wasted fields. 
Some, like Camillus and Cicero, aie travelling in foreign coun- 
tries and anxiously waiting the time when they may return to 
the service of their people. Some, like Sallust and Varro, have 
betaken themselves to literary labors and are making for pos- 
terity the records of their times. Some have returned from the 
Forum to the Bar, and men may sometimes hear the old ring 
which was wont to move them to rapture in happier days. Some 
are yet ministering to the sick, now more numerous and neces- 
sitous because of the wastings of a protracted war. Some are 
reopening the long-obstructed channels of trade and commerce. 
Some are rebuilding and rehabilitating the nurseries of educa- 
tion. And some yet stand on Sabbath mornings in holy tem- 
ples, and from having shared, like Daniel, in all the afflictions of 
their people, have come to a better trust in God, and can draw 
from His oracles truer and more consoling interpretations. 

We may look upon such men in these, their less exalted 
estates, and admire the more the virtue which grows purer in 
those fires through which it is passing; but we may not obtrude 
upon their privacy, nor disturb their labors and meditations. 
To them even the voice of praise would bring little pleasure 
while they are brooding over an unhappy country which they 
have not the power to serve, and, in the knowledge that the 
active days of their careers are over, are solemnly waiting for 
the end. Their eulogy will be best pronounced hereafter. 



HOMAGE TO THE DEAD OF KENTUCKY. IO3 

They have appealed to the next ages for their vindication, and 
they neither fear their judgment nor doubt that the honors 
which are now withheld will hereafter come and cluster 
around their graves. r. m. johnston. 

Richard Malcolm Johnston was born in Hancock Co., Ga., March 8, 1822. He was 
educated at Mercer University, and practised law in partnership with Judges Baxter, 
Thomas, and Linton Stephens, successively; and was afterwards (1858-1862) Professor 
of English Literature in the State University at Athens. During the war he was aide~ 
de-camp to Governor Brown, with the rank of Colonel. In 1867 he removed to Waverly, 
Md., and established the Penn Lucy school lor boys. 

Dukesborough Tales. By Fhilevion Perck^ Baltmore: Turnbull Brothers, 1871, 
established his reputation as one of the leading humi rists of the South. It is a faithful 
picture of " the grim and rude, but hearty old times in Georgia," and their racy spirit is 
embalmed in a humor as innocent as it is quaint 

" Even in the slight sketches the reader can see that ' Philemon Perch' has that rare 
gift, the power of dramatic presentation of characters. By this power things in them- 
selves trivial become invested with strange interest, and we follow the persecutions of a 
hardly-used schoolboy (in Tlie Goose-pond School) with as rapt attention, and exult as 
triumphantly in the perlpateia, when he thrashes his brute of a master, as if we had 
been vvitnessmg some grand drama of heroic suffering and heroic victory." — Southern 
I^Iagaziiie. 

In connection with William Hand Browne he published in 1872, English Literature: 
New York: University Publishing Co.; and the same authors have now in press. Life 
and Speeches 0/ Alexander H. Stephens. 



HOMAGE TO THE DEAD OF KENTUCKY- 
JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE. 

IT was the faith of our ancient Aryan ancestors that the 
spirits of their great wise bards and teachers ascended to the 
sky at their death, and became stars, immortal revealings of 
that universal light, the life of the universe, which they called 
the great god Indra. If that were still our creed, and if we, 
like our ancestors, kindled our sacrificial fires, at early dawn, 
upon the summits of the mountains, and worshipped Mitra, the 
glorious morning star, and the stars that had been great and 
good men, none of those that look benignly down upon the 
fair fields and woods of Kentucky would shine with a brighter 
and purer radiance than the star-spirit of our Illustrious 
Brother Breckinridge. Then monuments and statues were not 
needed to perpetuate the names and memories of Aryan sages 



I04 READING AND ORATORY. 

and heroes; for, as often as the stars ascended into the sky, the 
herdsman upon the steppes, and the husbandman upon the al- 
luvial plains of Samarkand or the Oxus, saw the benefactors of 
his race shining in the heavens, and revered them as guides 
protectors, and defenders. 

Neither will the people of Kentucky need the monument or 
the statue to perpetuate his name and memory. His monu- 
ment, more durable than marble, is builded in the people's 
heart, and when we who are men and women shall have been 
long gathered to our fathers, those who come after us, sitting 
of autumn eventides under the branching arms of the old 
oaks, or of winter nights around the hearths of the old home- 
steads, will talk of the eloquent advocate, the great statesman, 
the heroic soldier, and the noble gentleman, whom their fathers 
and grandfathers knew and loved and honored, as in France 
they talked, in after ages, of Bayard, and in Spain of Ruy 
Diaz and Pelayo. 

He won, almost at a bound, the highest civic honors, while 
others toiled slowly after him up the rugged and difficult paths 
that lead to the summit of fame; and, deserving all the honors 
that he attained, he was not found unequal to the duties of 
any station, and wore no laurels that he did not nobly win. I 
knew him well when the great civil war was about to begin. 
Reluctant to believe in the necessity of a separation of the 
States, he put aside, when at last convinced, all other consid- 
erations than that of duty, and turned away from the higher 
places that he might have reached, to become the Paladin of 
the weaker cause, an illustrious leader, peer in everything of 
the old knights loyal and true, whose virtues and excellences 
lived again in him. Brave as Ney, and generous as brave, be- 
loved by his men and the idol of his State, nothing was want- 
ing to his fame; and, like Bayard, he needed not more years 
of life to be immortal. 

"We live in deeds, not years; in thoug^hts, not breaths; 
In feelings, not in figures on the dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 



GONE FORWARD. 10$ 

In the loving bosom of his mother-land, Kentucky, his body 
lies, and there his brain and heart will moulder into dust and 
become a part of her; but his influences live after him, and 
will be eternal. Always the past is the lawgiver of the present 
and the future. The past of Kentucky has been great, illus- 
trious, and fortunate. Her future will be no less so, if, stand- 
ing upon the old ways, she thence makes progress, obeying the 
legislation which the past has enacted for her in the wise 
thoughts, the great examples, and the beneficent influences of 
the generous and gallant sons who have lived and died in her 
service, crowning her with honor and glory. 

ALBERT PIKE . 



GONE FORWARD. 

YES, "Let the tent be struck:" Victorious morning 
Through every crevice flashes in a day 
Magnificent beyond all earth's adorning: 

The night is over; wherefore should he stay? 
And wherefore should our voices choke to say, « 

"The General has gone forward?" 

Life's foughten field not once beheld surrender, 

But with superb endurance, present, past, 
Our pure Commander, lofty, simple, tender, 

Through good, through ill, held his high purpose fast, 

Wearing his armor spotless, — till at last. 

Death gave the final *" Forward!" 

All hearts grew sudden palsied: Yet what said he 

Thus summoned? — * '^Lct the tent be struck!" — For when 

Did call of duty fail to find him ready 
Nobly to do his work in sight of men, 
For God's sake and for his country's sake — and then. 
To watch, wait, or go forward? 



* Dying words of General R. E. Lee. 



I06 READING AND ORATORY. 

We will not weep, — we dare not' Such a story 
As his large life writes on the century's years 

Should crowd our bosoms with a flush of glory, 
That manhood's type, supremest that appears 
To-day, he shows the ages. Nay, no tears 
Because he has gone forward! 

Gone forward? — Whither? — Where the marshall'd legions, 
Christ's well-worn soldiers, from their conflicts cease, — ■ 

Where Faith's true Red-Cross Knights repose in regions 
Thick-studded with the calm, white tents of peace, — 
Thither, right joyful to accept release, 

The General has gone forward! 

MARGARET J. PRESTON. 



THE TERRITORIES COMMON PROPERTY OF 
THE PEOPLE. 

THE Territories are the common property of the people of 
the United States, purchased by their common blood and 
treasure. You are their common agents; it is your duty, 
while they are in a Territorial state, to remove all impediments 
to their free e ijoyment by all sections and people of the 
Union, the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder. You have 
given the strongest indications that you will not perform this 
trust — that you will appropriate to yourselves all this Territory, 
perpetrate all these wrongs which I have enumerated, yet, 
with these declarations on your lips, when Southern men refused 
to act in party caucuses with you in which you have a con- 
trolling majority — when we ask the simplest guarantee for the 
future — we are denounced out of doors as recusants and fac- 
tionists, and in doors we are met with the cry of " Union, 
Union!" 

Sir, we have passed that point. It is too late. I have used 
all my energies, from the beginning of this question, to save the 
country from this convulsion. I have resisted what I deemed 



PROTEST AGAINST- MODERN MATERIALISM. 107 

unnecessary and hurtful agitation. I hoped against hope, that 
a sense. of justice and patriotism would induce the North to 
settle these questions upon principles honorable and safe to 
both sections of the Union. I have planted myself upon a 
National platform, resisting extremes at home and abroad, will- 
ingly subjecting myself to the aspersions of enemies, and, far 
worse than that, the misconstruction of friends, determined to 
struggle for, and accept any fair and honorable adjustment of 
these questions. I have almost despaired of any such, at least 
from this House. We must arouse and appeal to the Nation. 
We must tell them, boldly and frankly, that we prefer any 
calamities to submission to such degradation and injury as they 
would entail upon us, that we hold that to be the consummation 
of all evil. I have stated my positions. I have not argued 
them. Give me securities that the power of the organization 
which you seek will not be used to the injury of my constitu- 
ents, then you can have my co-operation, but not till then. 
Grant them, and you prevent the recurrence of the disgrace- 
ful scenes of the last twenty-four hours, and restore tranquility 
to the country. Refuse them, and, as far as I am concerned, 
"let discord reign forever!" Robert toombs. 

Robert Toombs, jurist, orator, and statesman, was born in Washington, Wilkes Co., 
Ga., July 2, 1810. He graduated at Union College, N. Y , in 1828, studied law at the 
University of Virginia, and began the practice in his native town. In 1836 he was Cap- 
tain of \'olunteers in the Creek War. He served several terms in the Georgia Legisla- 
ture, and in both Houses of Congress, being in the Senate from 1853 to 1861, when on 
the secession of Georgia, he withdrew. .\s a member of the Montgomery Congress he 
helped to organize the Confderate Government, and for a time was Secretary of State 
of the Confederacy, but preferring active service he was given a brigade in the field. 



PROTEST AGAINST MODERN MATERIALISM. 

AGAINST that system of Materialism whose advocates are 
found in the highest walks of literature and science to-day, 
and which is boldly put forward by them as the " new faith," be- 
fore which all our old faiths, as things effete and worn out, are to 
disappear, I enter my solemn protest. As one who stands upon 



I08 READING AND ORATORY. 

the dyke which protects fair cultivated fields from the en- 
croachment of devastating floods, and detects the oozing of 
the tiny drops which are heralds of the incipient crevasse, 
so stand I to-day between a civilization the fairest on 
which the sun ever shone, and a turbid, encroaching flood 
whose waters are dark as Erebus, and deadly as the fabled 
vapors of the Asphaltic Sea. Between this civilization 
and the desolating flood, the great bulwark under God is 
that spiritualistic philosophy which Materialism seeks to 
undermine. 

I protest against that system because of the dishonor which 
it puts upon human nature. It degrades man to the level of 
the brute. It profanes all the sanctities of his nature. It pol- 
lutes all the fountains of his life. My nature resents, Avith an 
infinite scorn, such an insult to its dignity and such a libel upon 
its birth. 

I protest again because of the coarse utilitarianism which it 
engenders. It exalts the material above the spiritual, makes 
more of the body than of the soul, and in its rude march of 
labor-saving, wealth-accumulating, resource-developing prog- 
ress, tramples under foot everything which cannot be immedi- 
ately applied to the practical business of life. Material prosperity 
is its highest goal. Civilization is estimated by the length of a 
nation's railways, the extent of its commerce and manufactures, 
and the number of its arms-bearing men; and thus, under the 
rough granite of a simply material civilization, is buried all that 
is most beautiful in art, most true in philosophy, and most 
sacred in religious faith. 

I protest against it because of the wrecks with which its his- 
toric pathway is strewn. Whenever a nation has become in- 
fected with this philosophy, it has yielded to disintegration and 
decay. 

Ancient Assyria in the time of her greatest splendor seemed 
possessed of a civilization that would never decay. But intoxi- 
cated with her wealth, her numbers, her resources, she wor- 
shipped at the shrine of Materialism, and soon all her private 
virtue had decayed, all true heroism and nobility of character 



WASHINGTON THE ARTIFICER OF HIS CHARACTER. IO9 

had evaporated, and a people of higher intellectual culture and 
hardier virtue laid her in the dust. 

Greece, so long as she remained under the dominant influ- 
ence of those systems of philosophy which taught the personal- 
ity of the gods and the spirituality of the men who worshipped 
them, wielded resistless empire in the world of nations and the 
world of thought. But the day came when the Epicurean philoso- 
phy was supreme, and, then as has been plaintively said, 
" for lack of light and for want of hope, everything of beauty 
in the literature of Greece, everything of grace in its art, all of 
truth in its philosophy, all of heroism in its character, withered 
and vanished away." 

It was when honeycombed by this materialistic philosophy 
that the vast fabric of the Roman empire crumbled to pieces, 
when, as the same writer has said, " Art expired, letters were 
lost, and for a thousand years the genius of barbarism brooded 
over the melancholy ruin." 

It was under the baleful influence of Materialism that the 
awful drama of the French Revolution was enacted. Introduce 
it here, and it will not be long until all civil and social order 
will be upheaved, and anarchy and sedition run riot in blood. 

T. D. WITHERSPOON. 



WASHINGTON THE ARTIFICER OF HIS OWN 
CHARACTER. 

I SHALL not speak now of the merely intellectual qualities 
of Washington. I rise to higher ground, and maintain that 
his character, the habitual tenor and manifestation of his act- 
ive being — as displayed in his life, public and private — is of it- 
self and in a true sense, one of the highest achievements of 
what is called the creative power. This power displays itself in 
the discovery of new truths and principles, or in new applica- 
tions of old ones. It does not literally create anything: it dis- 
covers, modifies, or reproduces. 

The character of Washington presented combinations of na- 



no READING AND ORATORY. 

ture and discipline: of intellect, knowledge, and virtue, of men- 
tal qualities and moral excellencies such as had never before 
been embodied in the person of any great actor on the theatre 
of public affairs. Particular parts of it, doubtless, had their 
counterparts in other persons, but the complete, rounded whole 
was new, fresh, and original. In its production, nature, inspira- 
tion, the divine afflatus, or whatever else we may call it, had 
much to do, but self-culture also played a most conspicuous 
part. Born in a country which was then regarded as almost a 
wilderness, untaught in the schools of learning; coming into 
rough contact at an early age, first as a surveyor, and then as 
an officer, with outward nature in her wildest forms, and with 
human beings still more wild; thrown upon the bare resources 
of his judgment in untried situations, and compelled to pro- 
vide against hunger and thirst, wind and rain, savage ambus- 
cades and all the privations and perils incident to pioneering 
and campaigning life on hostile forest frontiers, he drew from 
the depths of his own soul, and from the lessons of a hard and 
stern experience, that self-reliance and self-control — that activ- 
ity and decision of character, and coolness in the presence of 
danger — those rules of military prudence, and, above all, those 
maxims of moral and civil conduct, which pointed him out in 
advance as a man designed by Providence to render some im- 
portant service to his country, and which fitted him, when the 
time came, to be her natural and consummate leader in war and 
in peace. 

No man was ever more truly the artificer of his own charac- 
ter, as well as of his own fame and fortunes. And if to the 
philosopher who drags to light some hidden law of nature; — if 
to the inventor who, combining skill with knowledge, constructs 
some new machine for the economy of labor and the multiplica- 
tion of power; — if to the poet who calls up to life the beings of 
his fancy and robes them with forms of beauty and qualities of 
excellence, to excite the delight and the imitation of men — if 
to these be attributed the God-like faculty of creation, — on 
what principle, and with what justice, shall it be denied to him 
who, working in all faithfulness and truth with the elements of 



THE LIONS OF MVCEN.^. I 1 1 

nature within him and with the outward facts and influences 
around him, made conquest after conquest in his own bosom, 
till he possessed his soul in patience — and then, adding knowl- 
edge to knowledge, and duty to duty, and virtue to virtue, 
built up within that soul — fit temple for such ministry — a real, 
vital, living character, clothed with all attributes of physical and 
mental and moral power — grand in repose and grand in action 
— till he stood, confessed before men, a type and a pattern of 
that true, heroic, and world-embracing manhood, of which 
poets had sung and philosophers dreamed, and which the good of 
all ages had longed to behold ! w. d. PORXiiR. 

W. D. Porter is a native of Charleston, S. C, a lawyer by profession, and was for 
twenty-five consecutive years a member of the General Assembly — a large portion of 
the time President of the Senate. He was elected Li jutenant-Governer by the people at 
the first election after the war, but, under the Reconstruction Act, was removed from 
office by the U S. Military Commander of the District of South Carolina. He took 
a very active and prominent part m the redemption of his State from negro rule, and 
upon the election of Governer Hampton accepted the appointment of " Master in 
Common Pleas and Chancery.' As orator, scholar, and jurist, he ranks among the lead- 
ing men of the South. 



THE LIONS OF MYCENAE. 

There they rise, 
The Lions of Mycenoe — rampant, stern, — 
Gigantic triumphs of an elder art 
That shames the best of ours; — though Ruin works 
Ruthlessly on them, with a mocking smile, 
Through lichen and green mosses to persuade 
All colors from the rainbow and the sky, 
To garnish fondly the gray hurts of Time! 

Still stand these famous Lions as of yore, 
Guardians of dwellings that no more demand 
Protection from without. No foe assails 
The City of the Atridae; nor, within. 
Clamor those warrior-hosts that once went forth, 
Following the king of men' In vain we seek 



112 READING AND ORATORY. 

The tomb of Agamemnon! Could we find, 
We doubtless should behold at dawn of day, 
The filial shade of his avenging son, 
Close tended by the faithful Pylades; 
And hear, from out the sepulchre, the cry 
Of sorrowful Electra, with her urn! 

The tragedy, without a parallel, 
Which made this Gate of Lions, and these Courts — 
Now shapeless ruins — a dread monument, 
Rises to vision as we gaze upon them. 
There Clytemnestra comes, the terrible queen, 
With horrid hands, still reeking with red gore, — 
While yet she pleads for poor humanity. 
In fond excuse, for that her husband slew 
Her daughter, to "appease the winds of Thrace":— 
That child, o'er all beloved, Iphigenia, 
"For whose dear sake she bore a mother's pains!" 

The Lady Macbeth of Mycenae, she 
Had but one human sentiment to plead 
To justify her passions in her lust; — 
Even as the Scottish woman stayed the stroke 
By her own hands, for that the destined victim 
"Resembled her own father as he slept.' 

The passions sleep at last! The criminals 
Lie in their several dungeons of deep earth, 
Resolved to dust, and what is living of them 
Gone to their dread account Another fate 
Works on the crumbhns Cyclopean walls: 
That worst destroyer. Time! As fell his stroke 
As that which in his chamber smote the king, 
Great Agamemnon! 

That a tale should live, 
While temples perish I That a poet's song 
Should keep its echoes fresh for all the hills 



THE LIONS OF MYCEN^. II3 

That could not keep their cities! — should preserve 
The fame of those, thrice honored in their lives, 
And at their dying, and in mightiest tombs. 
While the tombs perish! 

What a moral's this! — 
That the mere legend of a blind old man, 
A beggar, outcast, wanderer — all in one — 
A chanter by the sea-side to poor sailors, 
Weaving his wanton fancies, skein by skein, 
• So that no man shall need to weave anew, — 

That his mere tale, his name and fame should live, 
While cities waste away, and temples blasted 
Leave bare the mortal greatness with no tomb! 

W. GILMORE SIMMS. 

William Gilmore Simms, LL. D., poet, novelist, and historian, was bom in Charles- 
ton, S. C, April 17, 1806. He began to write verses at the age of eight years; unable to 
obtain a collegiate education, he mastered such books as he had access to, and when 
nineteen years old published his first important poem, A Monody on Gen. C. C. Pinckney. 
In the nullification troubles he espoused the cause of the Union with much ardor, be- 
came editor and proprietor of the City Gazette^ the chief organ of his party, and in its 
failure lost his small patrimony. About the year 1832 he entered fairly upon his career 
as a professional author. Attention was first called to his merits by a sea-tale in verse, 
Atalantis, which was favorably reviewed even in Europe. After this appeared South- 
ern Passages a>id Pictures, 1839; Donna Florida, 1843; Grouped Thoughts and Scattered 
Fancies, and Areytos, or Songs 0/ the South, 1846; Lays 0/ the Palmetto, 1848; The Eye 
and the Wing, and Cassique 0/ Accabee, 1849; The City of the Silent, delivered at the 
consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, 1850. These are all poems. Besides, he has writ- 
ten two dramas, Nortnan Maurice, and Michael Bonhain, or The Fall 0/ the Alamo, 
with a great number of fugitive verses. In fiction he has been the most prolific of 
American writers: an enumeration of his novels and tales would fill a page. Many 
of his romances present characters and incidents of Revolutionary times, or life upon 
the border: Guy Rivers, The Yonassce, The Partisan, Mellichampe, Katherine Walton, 
and The Scout are regarded as the best of this class. In history he has given us a His- 
tory of South Carolina, and South Carolina in the Revolution. Four volumes of Bi- 
ography — Lives of Marion, John Smith, Green, and Chevalier Bayard — are from his 
pen. Besides all these, he has contributed a vast number of critical, historical, biograph- 
ical, etc., papers to various magazines and reviews. In his last years he was oppressed 
with great calamities— the death of his wife, and the destruction by the Federals of his 
country home. Woodlands, and his large library, together with manuscripts whose loss 
was irreparable. With unfailing resouhition, however, he continued to work, and 
died, as he had wished, " in harness," June n, 1870. 



114 READING AND ORATORY. 



REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES SENATE TO 
THE NEW HALL. 

THE Senate is assembled for the last time in this Chamber. 
Henceforth it will be converted to other uses, yet it must 
remain forever connected with great events, and sacred to the 
memories of the departed orators and statesmen who here en- 
gaged in high debates, and shaped the policy of their country. 
Hereafter the American and the stranger, as they wander 
through the Capitol, will turn with instinctive reverence to view 
the spot on which so many and great materials have accumulated 
for history. They will recall the images of the great and the 
good, whose renown is the common property of the Union; 
and chiefly, perhaps, they will linger around the seats once 
occupied by the mighty three, whose names and fame, associated 
in life, death has not been able to sever; illustrious men, who in 
their generation sometimes divided, sometimes led, and some- 
times resisted public opinion — for they were of that higher class 
of statesmen who seek the right and follow their convictions. 

There sat Calhoun, the Senator, inflexible, austere, oppressed, 
but not overwhelmed by his deep sense of the importance of his 
public functions; seeking the truth, then fearlessly following 
it — a man whose unsparing mtellect compelled all his emotions to 
harmonize with the deductions of his rigorous logic, and whose 
noble countenance habitually wore the expression of one en- 
gaged in the performance of high public duties. 

This was Webster's seat. He, too, was every inch a Senator, 
Conscious of his own vast powers, he reposed with confidence 
on himself; and scorning the contrivances of smaller men, he 
stood among his peers all the greater for the simple dignity of 
his senatorial demeanor. Type of his Northern home, he rises 
before the imagination, in the grand and granite outline of his 
form and intellect, like a great New England rock, repelling a 
New England wave. As a writer his productions will be 
cherished by statesmen and scholars while the English tongue 
is spoken. As a senatorial orator, his great efforts are historic- 



REMOVAL OF U. S, SENATE TO NEW HALL. 1 15 

ally associated with this Chamber, whose very air seems yet to 
vibrate beneath the strokes of his deep tones and his weighty 
words. 

On the outer circle sat Henry Clay, with his impetuous and 
ardent nature untamed by age, and exhibiting in the Senate the 
same vehement patriotism and passionate eloquence that of yore 
electrified the House of Representatives and the country. His 
extraordinary personal endowments, his courage, all his noble 
qualities, invested him with an individuality and a charm of 
character which, in any age, would have made him a favorite 
of history. He loved his country above all earthly objects. He 
loved liberty in all countries. Illustrious man! — orator, patriot, 
philanthropist — whose light, at its meridian, was seen and felt in 
the remotest parts of the civilized world, and whose declining sun 
as it hastened down the west, threw back its level beams, in hues 
of mellowed splendor, to illuminate and to cheer the land he 
loved and served so well. 

All the States may point with gratified pride to the services 
in the Senate of their patriotic sons. Crowding the memory, 
come the names of Adams, Hayne, Wright, Mason, Otis, Ma- 
con, Pinckney, and the rest — I cannot number them — who, in 
the record of their acts and utterances, appeal to their succes- 
sors to give the Union a destiny not unworthy of the past. 
What models were these, to awaken emulation or to plunge in 
despair! Fortunate will be the American statesmen who, in 
this age or in succeeding times, shall contribute to invest the 
new Hall to which we go with historical memories like those 
which cluster here. 

And now, Senators, we leave this memorable Chamber, bear- 
ing with us unimpaired the Constitution we received from our 
forefathers. Let us cherish it with grateful acknowledgment 
to the Divine Power who controls the destinies of empires and 
whose goodness we adore. The structures reared by men yield to 
the corroding tooth of time. These marble walls must moulder 
into dust; but the principles of constitutional liberty, guarded 
by wisdom and virtue, unlike material elements, do not de- 
cay. Let us devoutly trust that another Senate, in another 



Il6 READING AND ORATORY. 

age, shall bear to a new and larger Chamber this Constitution 
vigorous and inviolate, and that the last generation of posterity 
shall witness the deliberations of the Representatives of American 
States still united, prosperous, and free. 

JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE. 

John Cabell Breckinridge was bom at Lexington, Ky., January i6, 1S21. His 
grandfather, Jolin Breckinridge, was Attorney-General under Jefferson and author of 
the famous Kentucky Resolutions of 1798; his mother was a daughter of President Smith, 
of Princeton, and a descendant of John Knox. He graduated from Centre College in 
1838, was one year at Princeton, and was then admitted to the bar. He emigrated 
to Iowa, but soon returned, married Miss Mary Burch, and practised law at Lexington. 
As Major of Kentucky Volunteers he went with Gen. Scott to the City of Mexico. Re- 
turning after the war, he entered the Legislature, but was soon elected over Gen. 
Leslie Combs to the U. S. Congress, and was re-elected. In this new field of politics 
his reputation as an orator and debater soon became national. He was offered by Pres- 
ident Pierce the mission to Spain, and declined ; and in 1856 he was elected Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States, having barely attained the constitutional age, and was the 
youngest man who has ever held that high office. The Convention which met at Charles- 
ton to nominate a successor to President Buchanan, after adjourning to Baltimore, 
chose him to be the Presidential candidate of the States' Rights wing of the Democ- 
racy. He was at this time in the U. S. Senate, having succeeded Mr. Crittenden. After 
the election of Lincoln, he remained some time in the Senate, endeavoring with great 
boldness to promote constitutional measures and to preserve peace; but finding his ef- 
forts vain, he retired to his home, whence he was soon driven by threats of arrest. A 
brigade was given him in the Confederate army, and in 1862 he was made Major- 
General. He became as distinguished in war as he had been in statesmanship, and in 
1865 he became Secretary of War. At the close of the war he escaped through Florida 
to Cuba— thence to Canada and Europe, but he returned in a year to his old home, 
where he lived, proscribed by the Federal powers, until his death, May 17, 1875. 



THE ESSENTIALS OF TRUE REPUBLICAN 
GOVERNMENT. 

• 

A YOUNG man starting out in life on his majority, with health, 
talent, and ability, under a favoring Providence, may be 
said to be the architect of his own fortunes. His destinies are in 
his own hands. He may make for himself a name, of honor or 
dishonor, according to his own acts. If he plants himself upon 
truth, integrity, honor, and uprightness, with industry, patience, 
and energy, he cannot fail of success. So it is with us. We 
are a young republic, just entering upon the arena of nations; 
we will be the architects of our own fortunes. Our destiny, 



surrey's dream. 117 

under Providence, is in our own hands. With wisdom, prudence, 
and statesmanship on the part of our public men, and intelli- 
gence, virtue, and patriotism on the part of the people, success, 
to the full measure of our most sanguine hopes, may be looked 
for. But if unwise counsels prevail — if we become divided — 
if schisms arise — if dissensions spring up — if factions are en- 
gendered — if party spirit, nourished by unholy personal ambi- 
tion, shall rear its hydra head, I have no good to prophesy for 
you. Without intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism on 
the part of the people, no republic or representative govern- 
ment can be durable or stable. 

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



SURREY'S DREAM. 

THE Rappahannock flows serenely yonder through the 
hills, as in other years; the autumn forests burn away in 
blue and gold and orange, as they did in the days of my 
youth, the winds whisper, the sunshine laughs, — it is only we 
who laugh no more. 

Was that a real series of events, I say, or only a drama of the 
imagination? Did I really hear the voice of Jackson and the 
laughter of Stuart in those glorious charges on those bloody 
fields? Did Ashby pass before me on his milk-white steed, and 
greet me by the camp-fire as his friend? Was it a real figure, 
that stately form of Lee, amid the swamps of the Chickahominy, 
the fire jof Malvern Hill, the appalling din and smoke and 
blood of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville — of 
Gettysburg, Spottsylvania, and Petersburg? Jackson, that 
greater than the leader of the Ironsides, — Stuart, more fiery 
than Rupert — Ashby, the pearl of chivalry and honor — Lee, 
the old Roman, fighting with a nerve so splendid to the bitter 
end — these were surely the figures of some dream, the forms 
of an excited imagination! Did Pelham press my hand, and 
fight and fall in that stubborn charge on Averill? Did Farley 
smile and fight and die near the very same spot? And was it 



Il8 READING AND ORATORY. 

really the eyes of Stuart that dropped bitter tears upon the 
pallid faces of these youths dead on the field of honor? It is 
like a dream to me that I looked upon these faces, that I touched 
the honest hand of Hood, gave back the friendly smile of 
Ambrose Hill, spoke with the hardy Longstreet, the stubborn 
Ewell, Hampton the fearless, and the chivalric Lees! Souls of 
fire and flame! with a light how steady burned these stately 
names! — how they fought, these hearts of oak! But did they 
live their lives, these heroes and their comrades, as I seem to 
remember? It was surely a dream — was it not — that the South 
fought so stubbornly for those four long years, and bore the 
blood-red battle-flag aloft in so many desperate encounters? 
But the dream was glorious — not even the i77wiedicabile vulnus 
of surrender can efface its splendor. Still it moves me and 
possesses me, and I live forever in that past. 

As I awake at morning, the murmur of the river breeze is the 
low roll of drums from the forest yonder, where the camps of 
infantry are aroused by the reveille. In the moonlight nights 
when all is still, a sound comes borne upon the breeze from 
some dim land — I seem to hear the bugles. As the sunlight 
falls now on the landscape of field and wood and river, a tem- 
pest gathers on the shores of the Rappahannock. The sun- 
shine disappears, sucked in by the black and threatening clouds 
which sweep from the far horizon; the lightnings flicker like 
quick tongues of flame; and as these fiery serpents play around 
the ebon mass, a mighty wind arises, swells, and roars on through 
the splendid foliage. Is it only a storm? — No! yonder varie- 
gated colors of the autumn leaves are the flaunting banners of 
an army drawn up there in line of battle, and about to charge. 
Listen! — that murmur of the Rappahannock is the muffled 
tramp of a column on the march. Hush! there is the bugle! 
and that rushing wind in the trees of the forest is the charge of 
Stuart and his horsemen! How the hoof-strokes tear along! — 
how the phantom horsemen shout as they charge! — how the 
ghost of Stuart rides! 

See the banners yonder, where the line of battle is drawn 
against the autumn woods — how their splendid colors burn, 



HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINIAN. 1 19 

how they flaunt, and wave, and ripple in the wind, proud and 
defiant! Is that distant figure on horseback the man of Port 
Republic, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, with his old 
faded cap, his dingy coat, and his piercing eyes? — and is that 
the cheering of the "foot cavalry," as they greet him? Look 
how the leafy banners, red as though dyed in blood, point for- 
ward, rippling as they come! See that dazzling flash! Is it 
lightning, or the glare of cannon? Hear that crash of thunder, 
like the opening roar of battle! — Jackson is advancing! 

A quick throb of the heart — a hand half reaching out to 
clutch the hilt of a battered old sword upon the wall — then I 
sink back in my chair. — It was only a dream! 

JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 



HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINIAN. 

THERE is a connection between diet and the ethnological 
characteristics of the human race, and I take it for 
granted, first, that a Virginian could not be a Virginian without 
bacon and greens; and second, that in every Virginian traces of 
bacon and traces of greens are distinctly perceptible. How else 
can you account for the Virginia love of good eating, the Virginia 
indifference to dress and household economy, and the incurable 
simplicity of the Virginia head? It has been affirmed by certain 
speculative philosophers that the Virginian persists in exhausting 
his soil with tobacco, because the cabbage he eats is itself ex- 
haustive of the soil; and that, because the hog is fond of wal- 
lowing in mud-puddles, therefore the Virginian takes naturally 
to politics. 

I am not prepared to dispute these points, but I am tolera- 
bly certain that a few other things besides bacon and greens 
are required to make a true Virginian. 

He must, of course, begin on pot-liquor, and keep it up until 
he sheds his milk-teeth. He must have fried chicken, stewed 
chicken, broiled chicken, and chicken-pie; old hare, butter-beans, 
new potatoes, squirrels, cymblins, snaps, barbecued shoat, roas'n 



I20 READING AND ORATORY. 

ears, buttermilk, hoe-cake, ash-cake, pancake, fritters, pot-pie, 
tomatoes, sweet potatoes, June apples, waffles, sweet milk, pars- 
nips, artichokes, carrots, cracklin-bread, hominy, bonny-clabber, 
scrambled eggs, gooba-peas, fried apples, pop-corn, persimmon 
beer, apple-bread, milk and peaches, mutton-stew, dewberries, 
batter-cakes, mus'melons, hickory nuts, partridges, honey in the 
honeycomb, snappin'-turtle eggs, damsom-tarts, cat-fish, cider, 
hot lightbread, and cornfield peas all the time. But he must 
not intermit bacon and greens. 

He must butt heads with little negroes, get the worst of it, 
and run crying to tell his ma about it. Wear white yarn socks 
with green toes, and yarn gallowses. Get the cow-itch, and live 
on milk and brimstone for a time. Make frog-houses over his 
feet in the wet sand, and find woodpecker nests. Meddle with 
the negro men at hog-killing time, and be in every body's way 
generally. Upset beehives, bring big wasps'-nests into the house, 
and get stung over the eye by a yellow-jacket. Watch setting 
turkeys, and own a bench-leg fice and a speckled shoat. Wade 
in the branch, eat too many black-heart cherries, try to tame a 
cat-bird, call doodle-bugs out of their holes, — and keep on eat- 
ing bacon and greens. 

He must make partridge traps out of tobacco-sticks, set guns 
for " Mollie-cottontails," mash-traps and dead-falls for minks, 
fish for minnows with a pin hook, and carry his worms in a 
cymlin; tie June-bugs to strings, and sing 'em under people's 
noses ; stump his toe and have it tied up in a rag ; wear 
patched breeches, stick thorns in his heel, and split his thumb 
open slicing horse-cakes with a dog-knife, sharpened contrary 
to orders on the grindstone. At eight years old he must know 
how to spell b a, ba, b e, be, and so on; and be abused for not 
learning his multiplication table, for riding the sorrel mare at a 
strain to the horse-pond, and for snoring regularly at family 
prayers. — Still he must continue to eat bacon and greens. 

About this time of life — or a little later — he must get his first 
suit of " store-clothes," and be sorely afflicted with freckles, 
stone bruises, hang-nails, mumps and warts, which last he de- 
lights in trimming with a Barlow knife, obtained by dint of 



HOW TO MAKE A TRUE VIRGINIAN. 121 

hard swapping. He must now go to old-field school, and carry 
his snack in a tin bucket, with a little bottle of molasses, stop- 
ped with a corn-cob stopper, and learn how to play marbles 
" for good," and to tell lies about getting late to school, because 
he fell in the branch. Also, to steal June apples, and bury 
them that they may ripen the sooner for his big sweetheart, 
who sits next to him. He must have a pop-gun, made of elder, 
and cut up his father's gum-shoes to make trap-balls, composed 
of equal parts of yarn and India-rubber. — At the same time he 
must keep steadily eating bacon and greens. 

He must now learn to cut jackets, play hard ball, choose 
partners for " cat" and "cherminy," be kept in, fight every 
other day, and be turned out for painting his face with poke- 
berry juice and grinning at the schoolmaster. After a good 
whipping from his father, who threatens to apprentice him to a 
carpenter, he enjoys his holiday by breaking colts and shooting 
field-larks in the daytime, and by 'possum hunting, or listening 
to ghost stories from the negroes, in the night. Returning to 
school, he studies pretty well for a time, but the love of mis- 
chief is so strong within him, that for his life he can't refrain 
from putting crooked pins on the benches where the little boys 
sit, and even in the schoolmaster's chair. The result is a 
severe battle with the schoolmaster, and his permanent dismis- 
sal. Thrown upon the world, he consoles himself with bacon 
and greens, makes love to a number of pretty girls, and pre- 
tends to play overseer. 

Failing at that, he tries to keep somebody's country store, 
but will close the doors whenever the weather is fine to " ketch 
chub" or play knucks. Tired of store-keeping, he makes a trip, 
sometimes all the way on horseback, to the far South, to look 
after his father's lands. Plays poker on the Mississippi, gets 
cheated, gets strapped, returns home, eats bacon and greens, 
and determines to be a better man. 

But the first thing he knows, he is off on a frolic in Richmond, 
where he loses all his money at faro, borrows enough to carry 
him home and buy a suit to go courting in. He next gets re- 
ligion at a camp-meeting, and loses it at a barbecue or fish-fry. 



122 READING AND ORATORY. 

Then he thinks he will teach school, or ride Deputy Sheriff, or 
write in the Clerk's office, and actually begins to study law, on 
the strength of which he becomes engaged to be married and 
runs for the Legislature. Gets beaten, gets drunk: reforms all 
of a sudden; eats plenty of bacon and greens; marries, much 
to the satisfaction of his own, and greatly to the honor of his 
wife's family; — and thus becomes a thorough-going Virginian. 

GEORGE W. BAGBY. 

Perhaps the best known of all living Southern humorists is George William Bagby, 
M. D., who was born in Bucliingham Co., Va., August 13, 1828. He attended Edgehill 
School, Princeton, N. J. (1838-41), Delaware College (1843-4), and graduated in medi- 
cine at University of Pennsylvania in 1849, but has never practised. Began his literary 
career as editor of Lynchburg Daily Express in 1853, and since then has been a constant 
correspondent and contributor of the leading journals and magazines. North and South. 
In i86q he succeeded John R. Thompson as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger^ 
and edited it until 1864. 

His principal productions are My Wife and my Theory about Wives ^ in Harper'' s Maga- 
zine ; Letters to Mozis Addums and Billy Ivvins: Blue Eyes and Buttermilk; John M. 
DanieFs Latch-Key: pamphlet, 1867; What I Did with my Fifty Millions, Philadelphia: 
1875; Meekin^s Tivinses, Richmond: 1877. 

He began his.humorous lectures in 1865, and met with great success. In graphic and 
truthful delineation of old-time Southern life and character, in all their lights and shades, 
he is unexcelled. The most popular of his lectures are: Bacon and Greens, or the 
Native Virginian; Womenfolks; An Apology for Fools; The Disease called Love; 
The Virginia Negro, Past and Present; and The Old Virginia Gentleinan. Since 1870 
he has been First Clerk to the Seoretary of State, and State Librarian at Richmond. 



THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. 

THE muffled drum's sad roll has beat 
The soldier's last tattoo; 
No more on life's parade shall meet 

The brave and daring few. 
On Fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards with solemn round 
The bivouac of the dead. 

No answer of the foe's advance 
Now swells upon the wind. 



THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. I23 

No troubled thought at midnight haunts 

Of loved ones left behind; 
No vision of the morrow's strife 

The warrior's dream alarms: 
No braying horn nor screaming fife 

At dawn shall call to arms. 

Their shivered swords are red with rust; 

Their plumed heads are bowed; 
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, 

Is now their martial shroud; 
And plenteous funeral tears have washed 

The red stains from each brow, 
And their proud forms, in battle gashed, 

Are free from anguish now. 

The neighing steed, the flashing blade, 
. The trumpet's stirring blast. 
The charge, the dreadful cannonade, 

The din and shout, are past; 
No war's wild note, nor glory's peal, 

Shall thrill with fierce delight 
Those breasts that never more shall feel 

The rapture of the fight. 

Like the dread northern hurricane 

That sweeps the broad plateau. 
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, 

Came down the serried foe. 
Our heroes felt the shock, and leapt 

To meet them on the plain; 
And long the pitying sky hath wept 

Above our gallant slain. 

Sons of our consecrated ground, 

Ye must not slumber there, 
Where stranger steps and tongues resound 

Along the heedless air. 



124 READING AND ORATORY. 

Your own proud land's heroic soil 

Shall be your fitter grave: 
She claims from war his richest spoil — 

The ashes of her brave. 

So 'neath their parent turf they rest, 

Far from the gory field; 
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast, 

On many a bloody shield. 
The sunshine of their native sky 

Smiles sadly on them here, 
And kindred hearts and eyes watch by 

The heroes' sepulchre. 

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! 

Dear as the blood you gave; 
No impious footsteps here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave. 
Nor shall your glory be forgot 

While fame her record keeps. 
Or honor points the hallowed spot 

Where valor proudly sleeps. 

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless tone 

In deathless songs shall tell, 
When many a vanquished age hath flown, 

The story how ye fell. 
Nor wreck, nor change, or winter's blight, 

Nor time's remorseless doom. 
Shall dim one ray of holy light 

That gilds your glorious tomb. 

THEODORE OTiaK.-.. 

The soldier-poet, Theodore O'Hara, was born in Danville, Ky., February ii, 1820. A 
child of misfortune and disappointment, the pressure of a narrow fortune, combined 
with the aspirations of a noble ambition, conspired to make his life singularly erratic. 
After receiving a thorough classical education at Bardstown, he read law, but in 1845 
accepted a position in the Treasury Department at Washington, from which he was ap- 
pointed to a Captaincy in the U. S. regular army, and served through Mexican War with 
such distinction as to be brevetted Major. Resigning his commission, he practised law 



"THE SOLID SOUTH." I25 

in Washington until the breaking out of the Cuban fever, when he embarked in that 
ill-starred enterprise as colonel of one of the regiments, and was badly wounded in the 
battle of Cardenas. He now turned his attention to journalism, and as editor of the UTo- 
bile Register^ the Louisville Ti/nes^anA the Frankfort i'eoman displayed signal ability. 
He was often called on by the Government to conduct diplomatic negotiations of im- 
portance with foreign nations, and his services were specially valued in the Tehuantepec 
Grant business. Entering the Confederate service as Colonel of 12th Alabama Regi- 
ment, he was subsequently on the staff of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, and it was 
into his arms that his great chief fell when he received his death-wound at Shiloh. He 
was then made Chief-of-Staff to Gen. John C. Breckinridge, his old fellow-student in 
law. The close of the war left him penniless, but he struggled bravely against pov- 
erty until his death in Alabama, June 6, 1867. In 1874 the Legislature of Kentucky 
caused his remains to be brought to Frankfort and there reinterred with appropriate 
honors in the State Cemetery. Like Gray, his fame rests chiefly upon one poem — The 
Bivouac 0/ the Dead^ which alone is sufficient to make his name immortal. " The hold 
of this elegy upon the popular heart grows stronger and more enduring. It is creep- 
ing into every scrap-book; it is continually quoted upon public occasions. Every 
year or two it makes the round of the American press, and recently it has excited en- 
thusiastic admiration in England. One stanza of it was inscribed upon a rude memo- 
rial nailed to a tree upon the battle-field of Chancellorsville; another was engraved 
upon a military monument at Boston, Mass., and still another adorns a memorial col- 
umn that marks the place where occurred one of the most bloody contests of the Cri- 
mean AVar. It will gain the high place in literature that it merits, and there it will re- 
main." — G. VV. Ranch's ''^ O^Hara and His Elegies^ Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers. 



"THE SOLID SOUTH." 

IT has sometimes been charged as a matter impugning the 
good citizenship of the Southern people, that since the war 
they have been identical in political opinion and action. The 
complaint, as made, takes the form of an arraignment of " The 
Solid South." Whether the unanimity of a people be a just 
ground of reproach against them depends entirely upon the prin- 
ciples on which they are united. It is hoped that all are united 
for virtue in the abstract. If by this complaint it is implied 
that the people of the Southern States, morbid from misfortune, 
are united in opposition to measures, right or wrong, and for 
purposes of obstruction and revenge, it is a great injustice, and 
one calculated to produce the very state of affairs it deplores. 
A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind. The calamities and 
sufferings of the Southern States being the same, it would be 
strange indeed if they were not unanimous in seeking relief, and 
upon all questions touching their common condition. There is 



126 READING AND ORATORY. 

nothing unpatriotic — nothing inconsistent with duty as good 
citizens, in being united — "soUd," if you please — for deliver- 
ance, for equal rights, and for honest government; and "solid!" 
too, against all opposed thereto — against injustice, extortion, 
oppression, and especially against all that make it their business 
to preach the gospel of hate, and to perpetuate strife between 
the sections and the races. 

SAMUEL McGOWAN. 



AFTER THE RAIN. 

BUT yesterday the vines hung bare; 
O work of rain and night! 
See where these morning-glories swing 
Their bells of blue and white. 

But yesterday the thirsty corn 

Its tasselled banners furled; 
The misty fingers of the rain 

Have every leaf uncurled. 

Stay! Spirit of the sun and rain, 

Thy silent lessons teach; 
Bid juices purple in the grape; 

And crimson in the peach. 

Aye, stay till gen'rous Plenty comes 

To sit at Labor's feet; 
And mark the emerald of her corn, 

The golden of her wheat. 

Stay, for thy smile makes glad the earth, 
Thy breath perfumes the air; 

Thy unseen presence fills our hearts — 
Thy peace is everywhere. 



MRS. S. R. ALLEN. 



READING AND ORATORY. 12; 



CHANGES ^VROUGHT BY THE WAR. 

THE forms, the deep convictions, the very life of ages dis- 
solve like fading dreams. The vestiges of human energy, 
worn deepest, and most gilded by the proudest civilizations, are 
levelled, overgrown, hidden, lost. Time itself seems but a 
graduated scale to mark inexorable change. The earth be- 
neath us, with its forests and mountains and seas, is hourly 
changing; the wide expanse around us dawns, glows, and fades; 
the heavens over us, with all their soaring worlds, change. ' No 
mountain or wave, no radiance or star, is the same to-day and 
to-morrow — all is change; but nothing of God's making can 
perish, death itself is but a change of form, nature passes from 
shape to shape, but its element, its primal principle is the same. 
The hardest granite, the purest diamond, may be crushed, pul- 
verized, sublimated, but new crystallizations will gather around 
the imperishable nucleus. 

Now it is a grievous and pitiable spectacle to contemplate 
the mouldering vestiges of our own departed greatness and lost 
liberty, the rolling and pestilential fragments which are left to 
us. It is too heart-rending to see the dreary desolation which 
has invaded our pleasant places, the homes of our industry, our 
opulence, and our happiness. Indeed, it seems unnatural that 
a land so young, so vigorous, and seemingly so blessed of ^God, 
should thus early sink into decrepitude and exhaustion; our 
fields, our vines, and our flowers, so soon encroached upon by 
the forest and jungle, from which, but the other day, our fathers 
had conquered them, and to see, too, the cedars and the palms, 
which were the pillars of our temples and the shelter of our 
people, prostrate; and the inner and the upper places at our 
altars held by the robber, the Pharisee, and the hypocrite. To 
you this change is terrible; it is so to my old eyes, now growing 
too dim to see even the bright things of earth, but must look 
beyond for their visions. You are just entering on the veiled 
path of life. What living light is before you, what sun-capped 
mountain, what beacon in the skies to guide your darkling 



128 READING AND ORATORY. 

Steps? You look along the dead waste and level, disturbed only 
by the dust of the earth. Like the lost wanderer of the desert, 
you gaze before you and see no living thing. You may sink in 
blank despair, but from your knees look upward, behold, deep- 
shining in the heavens, those bright eternal spheres which will 
give you light to guide your way, and cheer your heart with 
their divine melodies. 

Then, young men, rise up! make one more effort. Draw from 
the funeral pyre of Virginia the memory of her transcendent 
past, and like the Eastern Magi, it will reveal visions of a new 
life, and gladden your souls with dreams of a bright enduring 
future. In that past you will see a noble Commonwealth, reared 
by wisdom and valor on the granite of Truth and Right, and 
building thereon a pure system of national liberty, with insti- 
tutions the fruit of that liberty, and illustrated by men who 
guarded that fruit with the courage, and the deep, clear wisdom 
of unspotted patriotism, men who looked straight into the bright 
countenance of Truth, and drew from her all their inspiration. 
There, too, you will find the stern sublimity of that true love of 
country which was incarnate in the dust now reposing at Mount 
Vernon and Monticello. And if, with the drawn sword over 
us, the chains on our arms, the lash at our back, and the torch 
at our chamber doors, we dare draw from a still nearer past, 
and speak of a people whose name is now blood-blotted from 
the rolls of nations, we might say, in God's hearing, that the 
records of those nations will be hunted in vain for a people, 
who, in devotion to their rights, in stern resolve, in heroic valor, 
in calm endurance, in meek submission to and humble reli- 
ance on a God of Truth, in the very piety of patriotism, sur- 
passed that people who five years ago called themselves Vir- 
ginians. JOHN S. PRESTON. 

GEORGIA. 

I WOULD that I had the power of presenting, with the 
brevity which becomes an occasion like this, a worthy ideal 
of Georgia, the land of my love. But not as she lies upon the 



geo'rgia. 



129 



map, stretching from the mountains to the ocean, dear as she 
must be to her sons in all of her variegated features; — in her 
mountains and her valleys, in her rivers and her cataracts, in 
her bare red hills and her broad fields of rustling corn and of 
cotton snowy white, in her vast primeval forests that roll back 
in softer cadence the majestic music of the melancholy sea; 
and, last but not least, in our own beautiful but modest 
Savannah, smiling sweetly through her veil of perennial, and 
yet of diversified green. 

It is not the Georgia of the map I would invoke before you 
to-night. I would conjure up, if I could, the Georgia of the 
soul — majestic ideal of a Sovereign State, at once the Mother 
and the Queen of a gallant people; — Georgia as she first placed 
her foot upon these western shores and beckoned hitherward 
from the elder world the poor but the virtuous, the oppressed but 
the upright, the unfortunate but the honorable; adopting for 
herself a sentiment far nobler than all the armorial bearings of 
"starred and spangled courts, where low-born baseness wafts 
perfume to pride"; — taking for her escutcheon the sentiment. 
Poverty and Virtue! Toil and be Honest! 

Next I would present you the Georgia who assumed to her- 
self, in companionship with her sister colonies, the right to the 
exclusive exercise of original sovereign power, declaring and 
achieving her independence of the British Crown. 

And next the Georgia who, through the lapse of nearly a 
century, was illustrated in a Union of Confederate Sovereignties, 
by the gallantry of her soldiers on the field of battle, by the 
wisdom of her statesmen in public council, by the virtue and 
self-abnegating devotion to the discharge of duty of her 
daughters in the modest seclusion of domestic life. And when 
I speak of her sons and daughters, I do not mean those simply 
who were born upon her bosom. I mean also, and I mean em- 
phatically, those who, like Crawford, and Berrien, and Forsythe, 
and Wilde, came to her from abroad, and added the rich bloom 
of their genius, learning, and eloquence to the pure wreath with 
which her children have encircled her regal brow — the only 
crown she cares to wear! I mean also, and I mean emphatically, 



130 READING AND ORATORY. 

those like the distinguished commander of the gallant corps 
whose guests we are to-night {^Captain IVkeaton, of the Chathajn 
Artillery], who brought to her his whole heart, to plant it and to 
root it here: ever ready to take his place among the foremost 
in repelling her enemy, whether he come, with streaming ban- 
ners, amid the thunders of war, or steal silently upon the 
poisoned currents of the midnight air. 

When the winter of our discontent was resting heavily, 
gloomily, upon us, at the holiest hour of the mysterious night a 
vision of surpassing loveliness rose before me: Georgia, my 
native State, with manacled limbs, and dishevelled locks, and 
tears streaming from weary eyes over a mangled form which she 
clasped, though with convulsed and fettered arms, to her 
bosom. And as I gazed, the features of the blood-stained 
soldier rapidly changed. First I saw Bartow, and then I saw 
Gallic, and then I saw Cobb, and there was Walker, and Willis, 
and Lamar; more rapid than light itself successively flashed out 
the wan but intrepid faces of her countless scores of dying 
heroes; and she pressed them close to her bosom, and closer 
still, and yet more close, until, behold, she had pressed them all 
right into her heart! 

And quickly, as it were in the twinkling of an eye, the fetters 
had fallen from her beautiful limbs, and the tears were dried 
upon her lovely cheeks, and the wonted fire had returned to 
her flashing eyes, and she was all of Georgia again; an equal 
among equals in a Union of Confederate Sovereignties. Yes! 
the Georgia of Oglethorpe, the Georgia of 1776, the Georgia of 
i860, is the Georgia of to-day; — is Georgia now, with her own 
peculiar memories, and her own peculiar hopes, her own historic 
and heroic names, and her own loyal sons and devoted 
daughters; — rich in resources, intrepid in soul, defiant of wrong 
as ever she was. 

God save her! God save our liege Sovereign! God bless 
Georgia, our beloved Queen! God save our only Queen! 

HENRY R. JACKSON. 

Henry R. Jackson, soldier, orator, poet, and jurist, was born m Athens, Ga., June 24, 
1820. He attended Princeton College; graduated at Yale College, 1839; and was ad- 



THE ALABAMA. I31 

mitted to the bar of Georgia, 1840. He practised at Savannah, and, in 1843, was ap- 
pointed U. S. District Attorney; distinguished himself in Mexican War and was Colonel 
of Volunteers; was Judge of Circuit Court, 1849-53, when he was appointed U.S. Minister 
to Austria, a position he held until 1S59, when he resigned and resumed the practice of 
his profession in Savannah, conducting this year for the U. S. Govennent the prosecu- 
tion of the celebrated case against the slaver Wam^erer, which had landed a cargo of^ 
Africans on the coast of Georgia. In the civil war he served (by appointment of the" 
Governor) as Major-General of the military forces of Georgia, and then as Brigadier- 
General of Volunteers in the Confederate army until captured in the disastrous Ten- 
nessee campaign. He has ever had a fondness for letters— contributing numerous 
articles to the reviews and other periodicals of the day, and publishing m 1850 a volume, 
Talhtlahy and Other Poems, \\'\\\<:\i was very popular; and is now President of Georgia 
Historical Society. He resides still in Savannah, actively engaged in his profession. 



THE ALABAMA. 

THE bones of the noble Alabama, full fathom five under the 
English channel, have, perchance, long ere this, suffered 
"a sea change into something rich and strange." Precious jewels 
these bones would be if they could be fished up now — yet not, 
thank Heaven, of that sort of value which would make our De- 
structive friends think it worth while to bring them into the 
Admiralty courts. A Southron might possibly be permitted 
to treasure a shell-covered rib, without fear of having it torn 
from him by the myrmidons of the law. And well might that 
Southron — well, indeed, might the citizen of any section of the 
United States, if he would consider the matter magnanimously 
— cherish any relic that could be recovered of this dead lioness 
of the seas. For what a wonderful history was hers. A single 
ship matched against one of the mightiest navies of the world, 
yet keeping the ocean in defiance of all pursuit for — we forget 
— how many years! Flitting like a phantom across the waters, 
appearing at astonishingly short intervals in the most opposite 
quarters of the globe, we used to follow her track with some- 
thing of ihat weird interest which was wont to thrill us in our 
boyhood when pouring over a tale of the ghostly Dutchman of 
the Cape. At one time lost in the fogs of the Northern Atlan- 
tic, at another popping up in the region of the trade winds, 
scattering dismay among the clippers; and anon, far away in 



132 READING AND ORATORY. 

the direction of the ciawn, where much more precious spoil 
might be reaped, or, if not reaped, then consigned to that vast 
locker of which the mythic " Davy" of the sailor is said to 
keep the key — such were the reports that reached us from 
month to month of this almost ubiquitous vessel. 

Now we heard, perhaps, that, in the neighborhood of the 
Golden Chersonesus, or under the rich shores of that " utmost 
Indian isle Toprobane," some homeward-bound Englishman 
had been startled by the dull boom of guns across the billows, 
while a red light upon the horizon informed him that the 
Alabama was illuminating those remote seas with the fires of 
Confederate revenge; and, again a little later, it was bruited 
from port to port that she was speeding across the main — haply 
amazing the gentle islanders of the Pacific with the gleam of 
her beautiful but unfamiliar flag — to complete the circuit of 
her awful mission with the destruction of a few treasure ships 
of the Ophir of the West. 

The repeated achievement of the adventure has rendered 
the circumnavigation of the globe in these modern days a com- 
monplace thing; but there was that in the errand upon which 
the Alabama was bound, which reinvested the voyage with its 
old romance; so that, in accompanying the Southern cruiser 
upon her various paths, we used to experience a feeling some- 
what resembling that imaginative one which Wordsworth has 
expressed in these deep-toned lines: 

"Almost as it was when ships were rare, 
From time to time, Hke pilgrims, here and there, 
Crossing- the waters, doubt and something dark, 
Of the old sea some reverential fear, 
Were with us as we watched thee, noble bark." 

The career of the Alabama was worthily closed. Challenged 
by a foe more powerful than herself, she sallied forth bravely 
to battle and went down in the sight of the coast of one people 
and of the ships of another, who each knew how to admire the 
valor which she had displayed. What a pity and what a won- 
der it is that the same generous appreciation of her glorious 
story, and its not less glorious end, is not shared in the country 



THE BAGGAGE SMASHER. 1 33 

which enshrines the name of Lawrence! Who could believe, 
that did not know it, that we Southrons are expected by those 
who call us brethren to remember this gallant ship only as a 
corsair, and its venerated commander as a pirate! 

HENRY TIMROD. 



THE BAGGAGE SMASHER. 

SOMETIMES, by luck, at dock or train, 
When helping, I have found 
The baggage of a long campaign 

Snug in a'n iron bound, 
A monstrous trunk, a high three-decked, 

Stout linen-wrapped affair. 
Some belle's or widow's wardrobe packed 

With most painstaking care. 
Ah, blessed vision! in a trice 

Upon that trunk I dash. 
And toss, bang, twist, and ne'er desist 

Till all within is mixed to hash ! 

How sweet the ladies' looks that see 

Me handle thus a trunk; 
The cry, half rage, half agony: 

"Oh, Charles, the man is drunk!" 
My heart beats high within me then, 

I slam the baggage worse and worse; 
My strength grows as the strength of ten 

To hear their husbands curse. 
The husband swears, the lady weeps. 

And should the trunk wide open spring, 
And silks, lace, flowers, fly out in showers, 

For rapture I could sing! 

Sometimes in Dodd's great wagon borne 
Through all the town I go; 



134 READING AND ORATORY. 

.1 ring some bell at early morn, 

Plunging through slush and snow; 
And whf^n the door is oped to me, 

Into the nice, clean hall I tramp, 
And everywhere, on floor and stair. 

My muddy footprints stamp: 
I mount the steps, I snatch the trunks, 

I wrench and jerk them half apart; 
I bump them down, I sling them round, 

And chuck them in the cart. 

With glee I lift each parcel high, 

And fling it down again; 
To smash the biggest trunks I try 

With all my might and main. 
Their wretched insides I shake up. 

And mix and stir in endless coil, 
Till boxes shiver and bottles pop, 

And silks and cambrics soil. 
And when the nice and costly things 

Are all besmirched and mussed, 
Like a schoolboy I laugh with joy 

Till I am fit to bust ! 



—SOUTHERN MAGAZINE. 



THE HABIT OF READING AND THE LOVE OF 
GOOD BOOKS. 

FOREMOST among all the means of education, highest 
among all the duties of the teacher, stands the pleasant 
privilege of reading with his classes the great English authors. 
For this, if skilfully managed, will serve not only to give solid- 
ity to young men's knowledge of their language, but also, what 
is even more weighty, to stimulate their love of reading and to 
shape their principles of taste. In doing this, or in failing to 
do it, lies after all the true criterion of education. With a love 
of books formed into the habits of his life, a young man, how- 



THE HABIT OF READING. I35 

ever small his stock of knowledge, goes into the world with 
his grasp upon all the possibilities. For him life becomes a 
long schooling in wisdom. Succeeding years, in spite of all 
their sorrows, will bring a deeper peace to his soul, a nobler 
outlook to his mind. But without this love of reading, all ef- 
forts at education are efforts thrown away, pearls before swine. 
If we cannot waken in our pupils love for the knowledge that 
lies in books, if we cannot guide that love to worthy objects, 
and lift the character by means of it into the regions of intel- 
lectual delights, then all our work is vain. For amid the dis- 
tractions and the sensualities of life, the habit of reading is the 
only ballast of character. Teachers, therefore, must develop 
strength for noble living by love of noble reading. They must 
fight the influences of the present by weapons bequeathed from 
the past. They must match the charms of books against the 
charms of the world, the power that flo.'.s from the page of 
Shakspeare against the power that flows from vulgar men's 
wealth or from knaves' success. 

If education fail to result in this, such education is a failure; 
for, in a few years, the scanty knowledge gained at school will 
be scraped off like veneering, and the soul be left naked against 
the world. Such was the thought in the mind of the Greek 
philosopher when he uttered his famous adage, that "the habit 
of using books is the instrument of education." For this habit 
lifts the mind above the contagion of vulgarity in language and 
in opinion. It lifts the soul above what is sensual or sordid in 
its surroundings. It strengthens the heart and the brain of the 
worker in his struggle for bread; it enables him to do his daily 
work without losing the glow of his humanity. It is, in fact, the 
only means of keeping the young from the vulgar contamina- 
tions and from the ignoble rust of the world; the only means of 
keeping alive a reverence for knowledge, the only means, there- 
fore, of leading our people upward to true culture. Hence I 
should rather see a scholar of mine leave college with the habit 
of daily reading and with the love of good reading, than to see 
him, without that, decked with the sheepskin of all the faculties, 

THOMAS R. PRICE. 



136 READING AND ORATORY. 

Thomas R. Price, born in Richmond, Va., March 18, 1839. Entered University o(- 
Virginia in 1856, and graduated with the master's degree in two years, a very rare thing; 
studied lavs', and went to Europe in 1859, where he changed line of study from Law to 
Greelt Philology, studying at Berlin, Keil, and Athens till 1862, when he returned to 
enter Confederate army as private; was promoted to Capiain of Engineers and served 
until close of the war. In 1868 he was elected Professor of Ancient Languages in Ran- 
dolph Macon College, and in 1870 transferred to the Chair of English Philology in that 
College — the first attempt ever made in a Southern institution to place the philological 
study of the English language as a part of the regular curriculum^ — the inception and 
successflil conduct of which added greatly to his reputation. He was elected, in 1866, to 
the Professorship of Greek in the University of Virginia, to succeed Dr. Basil L. Gil- 
dersleeve. His published writings— besides a few short poems— have been essays en 
philological and educational subjects, never collected into book form. 



VIVE LA FRANCE! 

A THOUSAND hearts beat fast to-day, 
A thousand hopes burn high, 
A thousand prayers like incense rise 

Toward the bending sky! 
Across the wave our blessings go, 

To find some ear, perchance, 
Not deafened quite by grief and pain, 
In distant, bleeding France. 

O fairest land of Art and Song, 

Hushed is thy music now! 
O land of Glory, not the bay, 

But cypress wreathes they brow! 
O brighest home of Chivalry! 

O land of fair Romance! 
Our hopes, our prayers are all for thee, 

God bless thee, sunny France! 

The music of thy Song is mute. 

But nobler strains are thine! 
All trampled lie thy vintage fields, 

But thou hast rarer wine! 
Thy music is the tramp of hosts 

Who rush to arms for thee, 



VIVE LA FRANCE. 1 37 

Thy wine the blood of gallant hearts, 
Who die to keep thee free! 

They have one voice, those patriot hosts, 

One cry as they advance, 
A million lips catch up the strain 

And echo, Vive la France! 
A million hands are clasped in prayer, 

That fain would use the lance — 
Ah, could another Joan rise 

To bid thee hope, O France! 

O eldest daughter of the Church! 

O land of saintly Kings! 
O land, where once the Cross stood first 

Before all earthly things! 
How has thy valor been abased, 

How has thy glory died. 
How has thine ancient honor waned, 

How fallen is thy pride! 

Land of St. Louis, turn thy gaze 

To where the Tiber flows. 
See that old man who stands alone, 

Begirt by countless foes: 
Take up the sword of Charles Martel, 

Which drove the Paynim home, 
Then bid thy sons to fight for thee, 

And after thee for Rome! 

O land of Bayard and De Foix, 

Brave hearts are thine at need, 
From every side warm voices rise 

To bid thy cause God-speed! 
Turn thee to Him from whom alone 

Triumph and glory are. 
Then win thine ancient name and fame 

Upon the fields of war! 

"CHRISTIAN REID" (Miss Frances Fisher). 



READING AND ORATORY. 



ADDRESS TO WHITE LEAGUE OF NEW- 
ORLEANS. 

NOT in martial guise, not with draped ensigns, nor arms 
reversed, nor sobbing drums, nor long-drawn wail of 
mournful bugles, nor volleyed thunders of farewell, but with 
hearts full of a tender and proud regret, you have assembled 
to-night to do reverence to the memory of those martyred 
patriots who fell in our streets, one year ago, fighting for 
freedom. 

If from the height where their valor planted our standard on 
that memorable day we have given ground by so much as one 
foot; if time has dulled the edge of our high purpose, or worn 
into slovenry our set resolve; if the principles which they illus- 
trated by their courage and sealed with their blood have been 
shaken from their steadfast roots by any wind of popular ca- 
price or storm of hostile menace, if the guile of traitors' prom- 
ises or the fear of tyrants' threats have turned us from the 
straight and narrow way by which they moved^over yawning 
graves — to one fixed end, then, burying in the tomb which holds 
their ashes our memories and our hopes, nothing remains, 
henceforward, but for them tears, and for us silence and eternal 
shame. 

Not so do I interpret the meaning of this vast concourse. In 
the solemn purpose for which it has spontaneously gathered; in 
the influence which rains from the brimming eyes of matron 
and virgin; in the calm, grave faces of the sons and husbands 
and lovers whom they sent to battle without a tear; in the un- 
bending mien of the citizen-soldier who led your arms then, as 
he holds your affections now, and who crowned his consummate 
victory with a prudence and moderation unexampled in the 
history of civil war; in the presence of your chief magistrate 
elect, that loyal and unselfish patriot who has laid everything 
he had, or was, or hoped — fortune, home, the best and bright- 
est years of his chivalrous manhood — upon the ahar of Louis- 
iana; and in yonder hatchment, blazoned with the names of 



I 



ADDRESS TO WHITE LEAGUE OK N. O. 1 39 

our dead heroes, for whom to-night we lift up our hearts, and 
whose dauntless spirits still rule us from their urns, I read the 
.same unaltered and unalterable determination that Louisiana 
"is of right, ought to be, and means to b^ Free!" 

If you have bowed, perforce, to the usurpation which still 
broods over us like some hideous nightmare, you at least have 
not consented to it. If you have been dumb under the mock- 
ery of a so-called "adjustment," it has been the silence of in- 
dignation, and not of acquiescence. If you have submitted to 
the odious sway of alien adventurers, set up and sustained by 
Federal power, as taskmasters over a people whom they insult 
and plunder, it has been solely in the interests of civil peace 
and domestic order. Never to such a government will you 
give your confidence or support; never to such a pact, I am 
sure, will you set your hands, and to-day, as through all your 
past, you will continue to resist, by every rightful means, the 
intolerable despotism under which we groan. You surely will 
take no step backward. To the maintenance of this resolve 
you are pledged, not less by the memory of the dead than by 
the hopes of the living. Unseduced where others waver, un- 
terrified where others quail, you will still oppose to the threat- 
ening front of the tyrant, free hearts and free foreheads; still 
will you stand, the bulwark of your people, still give to the 
State the cheap defence of your unbought service, 

" And if some dreadful need should rise, 
Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke." 

J. DICKSON BRUNS. 

John Dickson Bruns, M. D., was born in Charleston, S. C, in 1836. In 1857 he 
became editor of the Charleston Medical Jcurnal^mwaedSsXeVy after having gradu- 
ated in medicine with the highest honors. He was chosen Professor of Physiology 
in the New Orleans School of Medicine in 1866. Besides having written much pertain- 
ing to his profession, he has distinguished himself in general literature; his best-known 
productions being his successful lectures on Tennyson and Henry Timrod, and his 
poems. The Christmas Hymn, Schiller, Charleston, U'reckeil, and The Legend of 
Santa Clatis. He is a polished scholar, a brilliant talker, and an eloquent and impas- 
sioned public speaker. 



I40 READING AND ORATORY. 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 

[ From Psalm of the Wist ] 

THEN haste ye, Prescott and Revere! 
Bring all the men of Lincoln here; 
Let Chelmsford, Littleton, Carlisle, 
Let Acton, Bedford, hither file — 
Oh, hither file, and plainly see 
Out of a wound leap Liberty. 

Say, Woodman April! all in green, 
Say, Robin April I hast thou seen 
In all thy travel round the earth 
Ever a morn of calmer birth? 
But morning's eye alone serene 
Can gaze across yon village-gi-een 
To where the trooping British run 
Through Lexington. 

Good men in fustian, stand ye still; 

The men in red come o'er the hill. 

Lay domm your arms, damned rebels! cry 

The men in red full haughtily. 

But never a grounding gun is heard. 

The men in fustian stand unstirred; 

Dead calm, save may be a wise bluebird 

Puts in his little heavenly word. 

O men in red! if ye but knew 

The half as much as bluebirds do, 

Now in this little tender calm 

Each hand would out, and every palm 

With patriot palm strike brotherhood's stroke 

Or ere those lines of battle broke. 

O men in red! if ye but knew 

The least of the all that bluebirds do, 

Now in this little godly calm, 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I4T 

Yon voice might sing the Future's Psahn — 
The Psalm of Love with the brotherly eyes 
Who pardons and is very wise — 
Yon voice that shouts, high-hoarse with ire, 
Fire! 

The red-coats fire, the homespuns fall- 

The homespuns' anxious voices call, 

Brother^ art hurt ? and IV/iere /lit, John ? 

And JVipe this blood, and Men, come on, 

And Neighbor, do but lift my head. 

And JVho is wounded? IVho is dead? 

Seven are killed. My God ' my God! 

Sez'en lie dead on the village sod — 

T^vo Harringtons, Parker, Hadley, Brown, 

Monroe and Porter, — these are down. 

Nay, look! Stout Harrington not yet dead! 

He crooks his elbow, lifts his head. 

He lies at the step of his own house-door; 

He crawls and makes a;path of gore. 

The wife from the window hath seen, and rushed; 

He hath reached the step, but the blood hath gushed; 

He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door, 

But his head hath dropped: he will crawl no more. 

Clasp, Wife, and kiss, and lift the head: 

Harrington lies at his doorstep dead. 

But, O ye Six that round him lay 

And bloodied up that April day! 

As Harrington fell, ye likewise fell — 

At the door of the House wherein ye dwell; 

As Harrington came, ye likewise came 

And died at the door of your House of Fame 

SIDNEY LANIER. 



142 READING AND ORATORY, 



LEGISLATIVE INSTRUCTIONS AND OFFICIAL 

DUTY. 

MR. PRESIDENT, — Having already expressed my delib- 
erate opinions at some length upon this very important 
measure now under consideration, I shall not trespass further 
upon the attention of the Senate. I have, however, one other 
duty to perform, a very painful one, I admit, but one which is 
none the less clear. I hold in my hand certain resolutions of 
the Legislature of Mississippi, which I ask to have read. * * * 

Mr. President, between these resolutions and my convictions 
there is a great gulf I cannot pass it. Of my love to the 
State of Mississippi I will not speak. My life alone can tell 
it. My gratitude for all the honors her people have done me, 
no words can express. I am best approving it by doing to-day 
what I think their true interest and their character require me 
to do. During my life in that State it has been my privilege to 
assist in the education of more than one generation of youth; 
to have given the impulse to wave after wave of young man- 
hood that has passed into the troubled sea of personal and 
political life; upon them I have always endeavored to impress 
the belief that truth is better than falsehood, honesty better 
than policy , courage better than cowardice. 

To-day my lessons confront me. I must be true or false, 
honest or cunning, faithful or unfaithful, to my people. Even 
in tills hour of their legislative displeasure and disapprobation 
I cannot vote as these resolutions direct. I cannot and will 
not shrink the responsibility which my position imposes. My 
duty, as I see it, I will do, and will vote against this bill. 

When that is done, my responsibility is ended. My reasons 
for my vote shall be given to my people. Then it will be for 
them to determine if adherence to honest convictions has dis- 
qualified me from represen ing them , whether a difference of 
opinion on a difificult and complicated subject, to which I have 
given patient, continued, conscientious study, to which I have 
brought entire honesty and singleness of purpose, arid upon 



SALLY JONES. 1 43 

which I have spent whatever abihty God has given me, is now 
to separate us. 

Whether the difference is to override that complete union of 
thought, sympathy, and hope which on all other, as I believe, 
even important subjects, binds us together, I must stand or 
fall, be the present decision what it may. I know the time is 
not far off when they will recognize my action wise and just, 
and armed with honest convictions of duty, I shall calmly 
await results, believing in the utterance of a great American, 
who never trusted his honored countrymen in vain, that " truth 
is omnipotent and public justice certain." 

L. Q. C. LAMAR 



SALLY JONES. 

I ENVY not the monarch's lot, 
His crowns and golden thrones; 
I'd rather share an humble cot 

With pretty Sally Jones! 
I'd tread the tropic's burning lands, 

Or seek the icy zones. 
Or wander o'er the desert sands. 
For little Sally Jones. 

Yes, had I Europe's proudest thrones, 

And Bonaparte's renown, 
I'd give them all for Sally Jones, 

And throw away my crown! 
Were I the laurelled bard of earth, 

With all that Rothschild owns, 
I'd count it all as nothing worth, 

Compared with Sally Jones! 

W. T. G. WEAVER. 



144 REAPING AND ORATORY. 



THE RED MEN OF ALABAMA, 

THE Red Men of Alabama, if properly reviewed, would be 
found to present more interesting facts and features, upon a 
more extended scale, than any other American tribes. The 
peculiarities which had ever invested the character of the In- 
dian with so much romantic interest, making him the chosen 
child of fable and of song, were here exhibited in bolder relief 
than elsewhere. In numbers; in the extent of their territories, 
all converging to the heart of our State; in their wide and ter- 
rific wars; in intercourse and traffic with the whites; in the 
mystery of their origin and migration; in the arts, rude though 
they were, which gradually refine and socialize man; in their 
political and religious forms, arrangements, and ceremonies; in 
manifestations of intellectual power, sagacity, and eloquence; in 
all those strange moral phenomena, which marked " the stoic of 
the woods, the man without a tear," — the native inhabitants of 
our soil surpassed all the other primitive nations, north of 
Mexico. The study of their history is peculiarly our province, 
— for they are indissolubly connected not only with the past, 
but the present and future of the State. 

Yes ! ' 'though they all have passed away,— 

That noble race and brave, 
Though their light canoes have vanished 

From off the crested wave; 
Though, 'mid the forest where they roved. 

There rings no hunter's shout, — 
Yet their names are on our waters. 

And we may not wash them out I 
Their memory liveth on our hills, 

Their baptism on our shore, — 
Our everlasting rivers speak 

Their dialect of yore!" 
'Tis heard where ChattaJioocTtee pours 

His yellow tide along: 
It sounds on Tallapoosa's shores. 

And Coosa swells the song; 
Where lordly Alabama sweeps. 

The symphony remains; 



MY MOTHER S GRAVE. I45 

And young Cahaivba proudly keeps 

The echo of its strains; 
Where Tuscaloosa's waters glide, 
• From stream and town 'tis heard, 
And dark Tombeckbee's winding tide 

Repeats the olden word; 
Afar where nature brightly wreathed 

Fit Edens for the free, 
Along Tuscumbia's bank 'tis breathed 

By stately Tennessee; 
And south, where, from Conecuh's springs 

Escambia' s waters steal, 

The ancient melody still rings, — 

From Tensaw and Mobile! 

A. B. MEEK. 



MY MOTHER'S GRAVE. 

I AM kneeling by my mother's grave. How holy the influ- 
ence that sinks upon my heart! Memory carries me back 
to the days when she was with me, and tells me of a thousand 
pleasures her sacred presence gave me — pleasures I shall never 
know again — and sadness is upon my heart, and a tear is in my 
eye, but still it is sweet to be here. I feel her love as I felt it 
in my childhood — and all around is musical in its silence, like 
the language of affection that speaks in the voiceless glance and 
smile of tenderness. 

Ah, grave! thou hast a precious treasure! Within thee are 
the hands that led me, the arms that embraced me, the tongue 
that gently taught me, and the face that smiled in holiest sym- 
pathy upon me. Alas! and shall I never see them any more? 

Be still' my soul: dost thou not hear spirit-echoes? This 
is, indeed, holy ground. I am nearer Heaven here than at any 
other spot on earth. I feel that she is near me, and yet I know 
that she is in Heaven. Oh! it is sweet to be here. The 
Father is strangely kind, and my heart is full of melting love. 

There's a mighty eloquence proving to my spirit, as I kneel 
by thy grave, dear mother, that we shall meet again! Glorious 
hopes appeal to thee, my soul, to cheer thee in thy sorrows and 



145 READING AND ORATORY. 

make thee faithful unto death. Thou still hast her blessing 
and love; for the prayers of a mother do not die when she 
dies, and the real heart and its sinless sympathies are never 
buried in the tomb. Her love is purer and warmer now, for it 
comes from the " sainted spirit shore." Thou shalt find her 
again in " the bosom of bliss." ^ ^. mangum. 

A. W. Mangum, A. M., was born in Orange Co., N. C, April i, 1834; graduated with 
first-honor grade at Randolph Macon College, 1854; entered the ministry of the M. E. 
Church, South, in 1856, and has been a member of the North Carolina Conference ever 
since. In 1875 he was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy and English Literature in 
the State University at Chapel Hill. His published writings are: Myrtle Leaves^ 1858; 
and The Safety Latnp. or Light for the Narro-jn Il'ay, 1866 — both religious works 
which met with a gciierous welcome, and were eminently successful in their mission. 



THE INFLUENCE OF WASHINGTON'S EX- 
AMPLE UPON LEE. 

LORD BACON has told us that success was the blessing of 
the Old Testament, but adversity that of the New, and that 
the virtues of adversity are of a higher order than the virtues 
of success. 

While Washington represents in the history of this country 
the virtues of success, Lee represents the virtues of adversity. 
The classic matron was wont to study the lives of great 
heroes, hoping thus to transmit to her sons their virtues and 
their valor; and in one sense there was deep philosophy in the 
idea, as the mother must herself have become fully imbued 
with the spirit of those virtues she would impart to her son. 
Lee's parents reverenced and venerated Washington, and the 
happiest of maternal influences presided over his infancy and 
youth. Their love for Washington naturally impressed itself 
upon the son, who adopted him as the ideal of his youth, as 
the model by which he sought to mould his own character. It 
is not surprising, therefore, that the good seed of Washington's 
example, sown in such soil, should have yielded an abundant 
harvest of virtue and of valor; and that wc should accordingly 



WASHINGTON'S INFLUENCE ON LEE. 147 

have, in Lee, a greater even than Washington for our matrons to 
admire and honor, and tor our youth to imitate. 

Lee himself, then, is the choice fruit of Washington's exam- 
ple, and furnishes a distinguished illustration of the value of 
great examplars in forming the character of youth. When we 
recollect that Lee, lavishly endowed by nature, was reared 
under these hallowed influences; that duty (which he styled the 
sublimest word in our language' was the "keynote" of his life, 
the pole-star of his every thought and action, and that he was 
ever sustained by his religion in this unwavering and conscien- 
tious adherence through life to the call of duty, we recognize 
the presence of every essential for developing the most ex- 
alted of mankind. We had accordingly in Lee that rare com- 
bination, the highest order of genius, with the purest morality 
of its day; the supreme valor of an Alexander, with the un- 
swerving justice of an Aristides; the brilliant talents of a 
Caesar, with the stern virtues of a Cato; the transcendent genius 
of a Napoleon, with the unselfish patriotism of a Washington: 

"A combination and a form indeed, 
Where ever)' god did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man." 

We have accordingly in Lee the last, best gift of the Mother 
of States and Statesmen, uniting the valor of the warrior with 
the gentleness of the woman, the wisdom of the sage with the 
purity of the saint; the virtue of the patriot with the humility 
of the Christian; the brilliancy of genius with the simplicity of 
faith. We have accordingly in Lee the most perfect embodiment 
yet developed of the ideal manhood of our Christian civiliza- 
tion — nature, birth, home influence, and social advantages, with 
his own aspirations for moral and Christian excellence, all com- 
bining most happily to produce in him the purest and greatest 
man of all the ages. ALay his grand character, as a bright ex- 
ample, a shining light, bless his countrymen to remotest 
generations. 

T. M. LOG.\N. 



148 READING AND ORATORY. 

EX PARTE RODRIGUEZ; 

CONCLUSION OF ARGUMENT BEFORE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS. 

COURTS as well as Legislatures derive their authority from 
the constitution; and if that instrument be superior to an 
act of the Legislature, it also limits and prescribes the powers of 
this court. If, by the terms of the constitution, the election of 
the people's representatives and of their governor is to be judi- 
cially ascertained and announced by another department and 
not by yours, then you have no more right to exercise original 
jurisdiction of that question than had the money-changers and 
those who sold doves to ply their vocation in the temple. Any 
other construction of your powers would violate the genius of 
our government, and inflict a fatal stab on the freedom of the 
people. 

It was well said by an able jurist, that a constitution grants 
no rights to the people, " but is the creature of their power, the 
instrument of their convenience^ It is the creature of the 
people's power, and you are but the creatures of that constitu- 
tion, which limits your power in the very sentence which con- 
fers it. It declares that "no person or collection of persons, 
being of one department, shall exercise any power properly at- 
tached to another," except in the instances "herein expressly 
permitted." It makes each House the judge of the election of 
its members; and wherein does it expressly permit you to in- 
vade their power by anticipating that judgment, or revising 
their action? 

From the days of James I. until now, no king or judge in 
England has dared to treat as a judicial question, before the 
courts, the legality of an election at which a House of 
Commons was chosen. If such was the right of our ancestors— - 
boldly asserted and fearlessly maintained as their traditional 
right, under the very shadow of the throne, and in defiance of 
the royal order which claimed jurisdiction for the judges — upon 
what pretence can this court invade and curtail like privileges 
of a legislative body to-day, which are solemnly secured to it 



EX PARTE RODRIGUEZ. I49 

by a written constitution? Truly was it said by the British 
Commons, in the case to which I have referred, that "our 
rights, once lost, are not recovered but with much disquiet"; 
and if lost, can the fact that they are usurped by a court in- 
stead of a king afford consolation? 

I have attempted to show that the courts, in an unbroken 
series of decisions from the days of Chief-Justice Marshall 
to the case of Georgia vs. Staunton, in deciding upon questions 
which are political fer se in their character, adopt and follow 
the construction of the political department, — that the jurisdic- 
tion over the question is not here but elsewhere, because the 
people, in making their constitution, wrote it down in language 
so plain that one must understand, that " each House shall be 
the judge of the election and qualification of its members." It 
will not do, in the face of these authorities, to say that this 
court is charged with the duty of passing on the constitution- 
ality of all acts of the Legislature. 

Let us contemplate the future, if the jurisdiction which you 
are invited to assume be exercised. If you discharge Rod- 
riguez, on the ground that the election was illegal, you cannot 
control the Legislature elect, which will assemble, organize, and 
inaugurate a governor The various county officers elect 
will be commissioned, and it requires no j)roi>het to foresee that, 
under the auspices of a majority of forty thousand, they will 
enter on the discharge of their official duties. You will, of 
course, be consistent, and regard them as criminals, for we have 
a statute which punishes with imprisonment those who assume 
the functions of public office to which they are not entitled; 
and the district judges will enforce your construction. We will 
then have the spectacle of a Supreme Court filling the prisons 
with officers of co-ordinate departments, from governor down 
— this court remaining the sole surviving representative of the 
sovereign power in the State. Contemplating such a contin- 
gency, pardon me if I ask your honors, in the language of a dis- 
tinguished jurist who once presided here, "Who administers 
the government, the governor or this Court?" 

In the division of the powers of the government, some checks 



150 READING AND ORATORY. 

were placed, also, on the courts. They have no power to 
usurp the functions, or destroy the existence, of co-ordinate 
branches of the government. 

If the Federal Government, instead of suffering but yesterday 
a shipload of her citizens, who were seized under her flag on 
the high seas by a third rate-power, and murdered without form 
of trial in sight of our coast, had declared war to avenge the 
outrage, would her courts, while her navy was thundering on 
the ocean in vindication of her flag, entertain, on habeas corpus, 
a plea that no just cause for war had occurred, or decide that 
none in their judgment existed? No! because that question 
was committed by the Constitution to the judgment of another 
department, and placed beyond the control of the judiciary. 
Should the sergeant-at-arms be ordered by the House of Repre- 
sentatives to seize and hold in confinement a member for an in- 
dignity to the House, could you inquire, on habeas corpus, into 
the cause of his confinement, and reversing the judgment of th^ 
House, release the prisoner? No, because each House " may 
punish members for disorderly conduct." Though the action 
might be despotic and flagrantly wrong — that would deprive 
whole counties of representation by expelling their members — ■ 
who but the House shall jndge of it? — for of this also they are 
made exclusive judges by the constitution. 

If one single case can be found, from the earliest dawn of 
American jurisprudence until now, in which any court has ever 
held illegal an act under which a Legislature was chosen, and 
under a constitution like ours, I will admit that I have mis- 
understood the theory of this government. The power of the 
Legislature to pass on its election is final and conclusive; — can 
there be two final and distinct judgments on the same question, 
by two separate and independent departments in one govern- 
ment? Rather, did not the people intend to place forever be-. 
yond the grasp of the judiciary and the executive their right to 
elect their representatives, by denying to those departments all 
discretion over that question? Thus, and thus only, can their 
voice be heard through a free ballot. 

I will be pardoned for reminding your honors of a fact not 



SEA WEEDS. 151 

before referred to by any one, namely; that you have, more 
than most men, a direct, personal interest in the (juestion we 
are considering. It is known to all that one of the effects of 
the late election, if valid, was, by ratifying a constitutional 
amendment, to change the tenure of your office. Your official 
existence is directly involved, and I may be permitted to indulge 
the hope that you will imitate the pure example of Lords Thur- 
low and Ellenborough, and that you will not, without due reflec- 
tion, pronounce a judgment against the people, in which your 
own interests are so clearly involved. 

Three times have the people of Texas, since the surrender, 
attempted to establish civic government. Once they were re- 
manded by the Federal powers to a condition of territorial 
vassalage; once, if we may believe the eloquent adversary, they 
were defrauded of their choice by a military commander; and 
now he himself leads the van in the third assault, and attempts 
by the more insidious approaches of judicial construction, to 
stifle again the popular voice, and substitute a reign of anarchy. 

By as much as the blessings of social order, now in jeopardy, 
are the dearest man can enjoy on earth, by so much I earnestly 
ask you to consider well the judgment you are about to render. 
Your province is to preserve and build up, not to destroy Let 
not anarchy take the place of order, and violence supplant 
quiet and security. You must at least doubt the existence of 
the jurisdiction claimed. Let me, in the name of the people, 
ask you to resolve that doubt, as it is your duty to do, in their 
favor. Do this, and from the people of Texas, who have been 
sorely tried, will go up a voice of gratitude that should be more 
pleasing to your honors than any benefit that can come to you 
from beyond the borders of this State. 

A. W. TERRELL. 



SEA WEEDS. 



FRIEND of the thoughtful mind and gentle heart, 
Beneath the citron-tree — 
Deep calling to my soul's profounder deep — 
I hear the Mexique Sea. 



152 READING AND ORATORY. 

White through the night rides in the spectral surf, 

Along the spectral sands, 
And all the air vibrates, as if from harps 

Touched by phantasmal hands. 

Bright in the moon the red pomegranate-flowers 

Lean to the yucca's bells. 
While with her chrism of dew sad midnight fills 

The milk-white asphodels. 

W^atching all night — as I have done before — 

I count the stars that set, 
Each writing on my soul some memory deep 

Of pleasure or regret; 

Till, wild with heartbreak, toward the east I turn, 

Waiting for dawn of day; 
And chanting sea, and asphodel, and star, 

Are faded, all, away. 

Only within my trembling, trembling hands — 

Brought unto me by thee — 
I clasp these beautiful and fragile things, 

Bright sea-weeds from the sea. 

Fair bloom the flowers beneath these northern skies. 
Pure shine the stars by night, 

And grandly sing the grand Atlantic waves 
In thunder-throated might; 

Yet, as the sea-shell in her chambers keeps 

The murmur of the sea. 
So the deep echoing memories of my home 

Will not depart from me. 

Prone on the page they lie, these gentle things. 

As I have seen them cast 
Like a drowned woman's hair along the sands 

When storms were overpast; 



BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 153 

Prone, like mine own affections, cast ashore 

In battle's storm and blight. 
Would they could die, like sea-weed! Bear with me, 

But I must weep to-night. 

Tell me again, of summers fairer made 

By spring's precursing plough; 
Of joyful reapers gathering tear-sown sheaves; 

Talk to me — will you? — now 

ANNIE CHAMBERS KETCHUM. 

Mrs. Annie Chambers Ketchum is a native of Kentucky, and the child of Vuginia 
parents. Her mother's family are the Bradfords of Devonshire, England; her father's, 
the Chambers family, of Kent, England. Through her grandmother she is a Scotch 
Stuart, and on the father's side has French and Spanish blood. Her family has been 
in America only since 1750. Composed verses at a very early age, and published a 
romance, AV/Zy BracA-en^ Philadelphia: 1855, highly praised by the critics. In 1S78 ap- 
])eared Lotos Floivers , a. coWeciwn of her poems published by Appleton & Co., New 
York. She has now in press Gypsying in Europe^ and will publish soon a romance, enti- 
tled Casta Diva. For writing the stirring battle-songs Nee Temere, Nee Timide, and The 
Bonny Blue Flag, she was banished from Memphis when the Federals captured that city. 
She has been twice married, and is now a widow, her last husband, Mr. Leonidas Ket- 
chum, of Memphis, having been killed in the battle of Shiloh. 



BURNS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 
CHARLESTON, 1859. 

IT is something, indeed, for a country to have produced a 
great poet — it is the rarest of all distinctions. He is of 
those who give rank to nations, not of those to whom a nation 
can give rank. Like the sun in the heavens — a fountain of- 
original light — he is sufficient to himself. In the fullness of 
his rays his country is glorified, and humanity itself is brighter 
in his beams. He is of all times and all countries, and, like 
our Burns, is the companion of David, and Homer, and Virgil; 
of Shakspeare and Gray, and Schiller and Dante, and Gold- 
smith, and Moore, and Bryant. All men in all times repeat his 
words, all hearts in all times will echo to his piercing notes of 
nature. 

We have all loved, and who has told the tale of love like 



T54 READING AND ORATORY. 

Burns? We are all lovers of our country, and who has sung 
the sacred transports of patriotism like Burns? We are social 
all, and love as now to gather round the festive board; whose 
heart more than his was the seat of all good fellowship, of all 
social delight and jollity? We are all proud of our country's 
arms and the brave deeds of our fathers; where are the war 
songs which, like his, fired as by the souls of Washington or 
Wallace in the fury of battle, are terrible as the clash of arms, 
fierce and shrill and piercing as the cry of victory? 

Creatures of sympathy — craving it as the light, needing it as 
the vital air — all men turn to the poet as the heart's universal 
confessor and friend, companion and comforter, and find, as in 
Burns, a charmed echo to all our feelings, sadness for our sor- 
rows, gladness for our mirth, and triumph for our victories! 

But in doing homage to the poet, and to Burns as a genius, 
let us not forget Burns the man. Let us not forget his glorious 
manhood. Gifted as he was, and famous for all time as he will 
be, let us to-day remember that, faithful as he was to the " ten 
talents" — the largest measure of mind with which his Maker had 
distinguished him — he was faithful also to a still nobler trust, 
more valuable than the treasure of genius, higher than the pre- 
rogatives of birth or the distinction of office — he was faithful 
to truth. He never betrayed her. His was the ardent soul to 
love her, his the herioc soul to defend her, his the sympathetic 
soul to celebrate in deathless strains all who had done, or suf- 
fered, or triumphed in her cause. He was truthful and natural 
and faithful in all things, in all relations. He reverenced his 
Maker with the humility of the publican. He loved his country 
as if she wielded the sceptre of universal empire; he honored his 
peasant father as if born to a kingdom, and he respected him- 
self and his class as if of the noblest of the earth. Peasant as 
he was, he was too proud to be jealous of a peer, and he gloried 
in his order as the very pith and bulwark of his country, and 
in the plough as the symbol of heroic independence, the very 
type of an unstinted manhood. He was content in his "hum- 
ble sphere to shine," and preserved " the dignity of man with 
soul erect." In him there was no guile, no pretence, no assump- 



I 



LOVE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY. I 55 

tion, no deceit. It was, this nature, so simple, loving, truthful, 
and brave, that made him the poet that he was, and sent his 
every word straight to the hearts of all men; and it is this na- 
ture, too, that makes us love the man as much as we adniire 
the genius, and that enshrines his memory in the hearts of his 
countrymen and the world. 

' GEORGE S.-I5RVAN. 



SOUTH CAROLINA'S LOVE OF CONSTITU- 
TIONAL LIBERTY. 

IF such, fellow- citizens, should be our lot — if the sacred soil 
of Carolina should be polluted by the footsteps of an invader, 
or be stained with the blood of her citizens, shed in her defence 
— I trust in Almighty God that no son of hers, native or adopted, 
who has been nourished at her bosom, or been cherished by her 
bounty, will be found raising a parricidal arm against our com- 
mon mother. — And even should she stand alone in this great 
struggle for constitutional liberty, encompassed by her enemies, 
that there will not be found in the wide limits of the State one 
recreant son, who will not fly to the rescue, and be ready to lay 
down his life in her defence. 

South Carolina cannot be drawn down from the proud 
enimence on which she has now placed herself, except by the 
hands of her own children. Give her but a fair field, and she 
asks no more. Should she succeed, hers will be glory enough, 
to have led the way in the noble work of Reform. And if, after 
making those efforts due to her own honor and the greatness of 
the cause, she is destined utterly to fail, the bitter fruits of that 
failure — not to herself alone, but to the entire South, nay to the 
whole Union — will attest her virtue. 

The speedy establishment, on the ruins of the rights of the 
States and the liberties of the people, of a great CoNSOLrD.A.TED 
Government, " riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman 
and beggared yeomanry" of our once happy land — our glorious 
confederacy broken into scattered and dishonored fragments — • 



156 READING AND ORATORY. 

the light of liberty extinguished, never perhaps to be relumed — 
these — these will be the melancholy memorials of that wisdom 
which saw the danger while yet at a distance, and of that patriot- 
ism which struggled gloriously to avert it; — memorials over which 
repentant though unavailing tears will assuredly be shed by 
those who will discover, when too late, that they have suffered 
the last occasion to pass away, when the liberties of the coun- 
try niight have been redeemed, and the Union established upon 
a foundation as enduring as the everlasting rocks. 

ROBERT V HAYNE. 

Robert Young Hayne was born in Colleton District, S. C, November 10, 1791. In 
early youth he gave little promise of unusual ability, though remarkable for energy of 
purpose and steadiness of character. He entered the law office of the Hon. Langdon 
Cheves in Charleston, in his eighteenth year; and upon that gentleman's election to the 
U. S. Senate his extensive practice fell into the hands of young Hayne, who soon es- 
tablished his reputation as a most able lawyer. As Captain of a militia company he 
served in the war of 1812, and after the close of hostilities was elected to the Legisla- 
ture of his native State, where he soon became prominent and was elected Speaker of the 
House. In 1823 he was elected U. S. Senator, and became famous as the antagonist of 
Clay and Webster during the exciting debates on the Tariff and State Sovereignty. He 
reported the Ordinance of Nullification in the State Convention; and soon after its 
passage was elected Governor, in which, at that time, difficult position, he displayed 
great executive ability and singular tact. At the expiraton of his term of office, in 
December, 1834, he retired to private life, and until his death, September 25, 1839, de- 
voted his energies to schemes of internal improvement. 

Mr. Hayne's style is remarkable for logical force and vigor, as well as for impassioned 
glow and a tone of profound sincerity which inspired his hearers with irrepressible 
enthusiasm. He was a worthy contemporary of the great statesmen who made his times 
illustrious; and few public men, indeed, have left behind them reputations for such 
lofty morality and purity of private life as that which attaches to his name. 



HAND -WASHING MAGISTRATES. 

LET us endeavor to transfer ourselves back to that mem- 
orable Friday morning in Jerusalem, and study the scenes 
which are enacted there, after this formal act of apostasy by 
the representatives of the nation in shouting, " No king but 
Caesar!" We shall find in them rich lessons of instruction, 
both on the human and the divine side of the gospel system. 
Attracted toward the court by this shout, "No king but 
Caesar," we find the judge just in the act of yielding, under the 



HAND -WASHING MAGISTRATES. 1 57 

popular cry, "If thou let this man go, thou — art not Caesar's 
friend", for he dreads the utterance of such a charge, how- 
ever absurd, in the ears of the irritable Tiberius, his master. 
Therefore he gives sentence as they demand; but "he took 
water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am 
innocent of the blood of this just person." 

Singular paradox; a magistrate innocent of the blood of one 
whom judicially he murders, while declaring him just in the 
same breath! No, no! Pilate, think not with water to wash 
off that stain of blood from thy hands. For, falling upon the 
official hand that pretends to weigh justice in the balance, its 
stain hath struck too deep for any water's cleansing. The un' 
titled, powerless, private man, forced by the mob to deeds of 
cruelty, might perhaps with the tears of ingenuous sorrow wash 
out the blood spot! But thou art imperial Cossar's legate, 
Pilate. Thine is the strong arm of the law, flashing its gleam- 
ing sword, by God's ordmance, in the defence of innocence, as 
well as in vengeance on guilt. Thy gorgeous ermine is full 
wide to shelter in its ample folds this torn and bleeding lamb 
that the fierce dogs of bigotry are thus savagely pursuing. With 
all thy pompous pretence to dignity and chivalrous Roman 
honor, thou art but a miserable pedler in blood! Baser than 
Judas, whose narrow soul thought thirty pieces of silver a worthy 
price, thou art selling him over again for a worthless smile from 
these ecclesiastical bloodhounds, whom every manly instinct of 
thy nature loathes and abhors! Thou art a poor coward, Pilate, 
that thou fearest such a mob, with the strong arm of Caesar to 
defend thee, and the broad shield of eternal justice to hold 
before thee! No, Pilate, no! Not all the waters of Jordan, 
that washed leprous Naaman clean; not all the waters that ever 
gushed from the rills of Siloam; not all the tears of sorrow 
that shall flow through eternity for thy sin, shall ever wash off 
that stain of blood! 

Yet how common seems this mistake of Pilate, that the un- 
righteous judgment of an official, given under pressure of strong 
temptations from personal consideration, — -either of desire to 
win popular favor; or avaricious hankering after gain; or the 



158 READING AND ORATORY. 

impulses of partisan malice or party obligations, — may be atoned 
for by giving the innocent the benefit of one's personal convic- 
tions and professions as an offset against the damage to him of 
one's villanous official deed; and that it is enough to perform 
a little penitential hand-washing for the filthy job done to popu- 
lar order! How little do men seem to comprehend the solemn 
truth that, as in the Church, under His revealed law, God hath 
appointed his ministers to be his representatives, and will surely 
punish the corrupt and unfaithful servants, so in the State, 
under that natural law which He hath revealed to all men 
alike. "The powers that be are ordained of God," and will 
likewise be held accountable to God. That the magistrate, 
called by the^public voice to office, is, in his sphere, "the min- 
ister of God for good," to the upright citizen, and "a revenger to 
execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." And every curse 
threatened against official unfaithfulness in the Church, lies with 
all its force, in the other sphere also, against the magistrate who 
misrepresents and caricatures God's essential justice. 

Ye cowardly hand-washers! If ye have not the manly 
courage to breast the billows of popular fury, and make your 
official voice heard above all the howls of the mob, then why 
thrust yourself into places to which, obviously, God hath not 
called you? If Tiberius, moved by the popular clamor, threaten 
you, then tell Tiberius and the mob, " we ought to obey God 
rather than men," and go into exile with a clear conscience for 
your companion. To the sort of men whom God calls to 
represent him, the passion of Tiberius and the curses of the 
mob are sweet music compared with the accusings of con- 
science! Beware how ye make light of bartering justice, either 
for the popular smile, or for place, or for gold. If by a right- 
eous Providence ye be not driven to Pilate's doom of exile, 
and suicide, like Judas; yet, be assured that, amid the curses 
of the ruined, the wails of the heartbroken, and the moans of 
the murdered ringing in your ears, ye shall wash, and wash in 
vain, at that blood-spot throughout eternity! 

STUART ROBINSON. 



READING AND ORATORY. 159 

THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. 

THE first step toward local or general harmony is the ban- 
ishment from our breasts of every feeling and sentiment 
calculated to stir the discords of the past. Nothing could be 
more injurious or mischievous to the future of this country, 
than the agitation, at present, of questions that divided the 
people anterior to or during the existence of the late war. On 
no occasion, and especially in the bestowment of office, ought 
such differences of opinion in the past ever to be mentioned, 
either for or against any one, otherwise equally entitled to con- 
fidence. These ideas or sentiments of other times and circum- 
stances are not the germs from which hopeful organizations can 
now arise. Let all differences of opinion, touching errors, or 
supposed errors, of the head or heart, on the part of any, in the 
past, growing out of these matters, be at once and forever in 
the deep ocean of oblivion buried. Let there be no crimina- 
tions or recriminations on account of acts of other days. No 
canvassing of past conduct or motives. Great disasters are 
upon us and upon the whole country, and without inquiring 
how these originated, or at whose door the fault should be laid, 
let us now, as common sharers of common misfortunes, on all 
occasions, consult only as to the best means, under the circum- 
stances as we find them, to secure the best ends toward future 
amelioration. Good government is what we want. This 
should be the leading desire and the controlling object with 
all; and I need not assure you, if this can be obtained, that 
our desolated fields, our towns, and villages, and cities, now in 
ruins, will soon — like the Phoenix — rise again from their ashes; 
and all our waste places will again, at no distant day, blossom 
as the rose. a. h. Stephens. 

THE SUNSET CITY. 

I SAW a strange, beautiful city arise 
On an island of light, in the sapphire skies, 
When the sun in his Tyrian drapery drest. 



l6o READING AND ORATORY. 

Like a shadow of God floated down to the west. 
A city of clouds, — in a moment it grew 
On an island of pearl, in an ocean of blue, 
And spirits of twilight enticed me to stray 
Through these palaces reared from the ruins of day. 

In musical murmurs, the soft sunset air, 
Like a golden-winged angel was calling me there, 
And my fancy sped on, till it found a rare home — 
A palace of jasper, Avith emerald dome. 
On a violet strand, by a wide azure flood, 
And where this rich city of sunset now stood, 
Methought some stray seraph had broken a bar 
From the gold gates of Eden, and left them ajar! 

There were amethyst castles whose turrets were spun 
Of fire drawn out from the heart of the sun; 
With columns of amber, and fountains of light. 
With their warm aureolas, so changingly bright. 
That Hope might have stolen such exquisite sheen 
To weave in her girdle of rainbow, I ween. 
And arches of glory grew over me there. 
As these fountains of sunset shot up through the air. 

Looking out from my cloud-pillared palace afar, 

I saw night let fall one vast, tremulous star 

On the calm brow of Even — who then in return, 

For the gem on her brow, and the dew in her urn, 

Seemed draping the darkness and hiding its gloom 

With the rose-colored curtains that fell from her loom. 

All bordered with purple, and violet dyes, 

Floating out like a fringe, from this veil of the skies. 

And lo! far away on the borders of night 
Rose a chain of cloud mountains as wondrously bright 
As if built from those atoms of splendor that start 
Through the depths of the diamond's crystalline heart, 
When light with a magical touch has revealed 



THE CAUCASIAN RACE MUST RULE. l6l 

The treasure of beams in its bosom concealed, 
While torrents of azure, all graceful and proud, 
Swept noislessly down from these mountains of cloud. 

But the tides of the darkness came on with its flood, 
And broke o'er the strand where my frail palace stood, 
While far in the distance the moon seemed to lave 
Like a silver-winged swan in night's ebon wave, 
And then, — like Atlantis, that isle of the blest, — 
Which in olden time sank with the billows to rest 
— Which now the blue water in mystery shrouds — 
Dropped down in the darkness this city of clouds. 

MRS. ROSA VERTNER JEFFREY. 

Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey — nee Griffith — was born at Natchez, and being adopted 
by maternal aunt, Mrs. V^ertner, took her name. She lived with her adopted parents at 
Port Gibson, Miss., then in Lexington, Ky., where she was educated, and still resides. 
While but a girl she contributed poems to Louisville Journal^ Home Journal^ and other 
papers. Her first volume. Poems by Rosa^ appeared in 1857. She has also contributed 
to Southern literature U'ooMurn: A Novel: New York, 1864; Daisy Dare, and Baby 
Power, Philadephia: 1871; and many tales, plays, and poems to the periodicals. She has 
now in her hands ready for publication several novels. At the age of seventeen she mar- 
ried Mr. Claude M. Johnson, by whom she had six children. After his death she married 
Mr. Alexander Jeffrey, a Scotchman of great culture and refinement. Mrs. Jeffrey's rare 
social attractions and literary genius have given her a place in Queens 0/ American So- 
ciety, Court Circles 0/ the Republic, IFomen of the South distinguished in Literature, and 
other notable volumes. 



THE CAUCASIAN RACE MUST RULE AMERICA. 

WITHOUT peace, permanent and assured beyond the 
least probability of interruption by internal strife, the 
State and the people cannot venture upon any course of devel- 
opment and improvement which requires more than a year, or 
two, to sow the seed and gather the harvest. And with this 
uncertainty every valuable and permanent establishment is so 
affected that it is impossible to prescribe for them a settled 
policy. It therefore must be necessary, as a cardinal rule of 
political and social economy, in Alabama, that the white race 
must rule in the government of the State. There can be no 



1 62 READING AND ORATORY. 

higher public duty than the firm and consistent support of this 
doctrine, because, without it we can neither progress, nor re- 
tain the ground we now hold. Without it, we must retrograde 
and perish. 

I do not design to present this argument in aid of any polit- 
ical party, but to prove that a great personal duty is resting upon 
every white man, to assert the rightful supremacy of his race in 
this State, and thereby remove the most dangerous obstacle to 
all improvement in our most important social and material in- 
terests. The danger is not that the negro race will be able, by 
the exercise of its own abilities, to usurp the government of 
the State, but that its power, cemented by race prejudice into 
an unbroken mass, will be easily controlled by white men who 
will barter away the best interests of the whole State for the op- 
portunity to control it. Hence the necessity, now more ex- 
treme and imperious than ever before, that white men should 
unite in covenants sealed in the sacredness of the common 
blood of our race, to uphold, by all lawful means, the creed of 
the rightful supremacy of the Caucasian in the control of our 
State Government. This secured, all is well with us, and the 
negro race will receive the most careful and ample protection 
in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This supremacy 
we have practically achieved, and through it peace and happiness 
pervade the land. It is our first duty to secure these blessings by 
a firm and unfaltering support of the great principle that enabled 
us to acquire them. We have no right to abdicate the authority 
of the Caucasian race over inferior races, established in all the 
traditions and historic records«of the past, and marked by im- 
perishable monuments in all the countries of the world. The 
right of the Caucasian to rule is in his blood; his commission is 
imprinted on his person with the signet of Divine authority and 
command; while one lives in the world he will be found exercis- 
ing his inherited dominion and authority. 

® JOHN T. MORGAN. 

John T.Morgan was born at Athens, Tenn., June 20, 1824; emigrated when nine 
years old to Alabama, in which State he was educated, and has since resided there; 
studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1845. He was a member of the Convention 
of his State, and signed the Ordinance of Secession; entered the Confederate army as 
private and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General; became a member of the U. S. Senate 
in 1877. 



READING AND ORATORY. 163 



THE DEATH OF PLINY THE ELDER. 

POMPEII was overwhelmed on vVugust 24, a. d. 79, by 
showers of ashes accompanying an eruption of Mount 
Vesuvius, which occurred at that time. Sixteen years before it 
came near going down under the operation of an earthquake 
which engulfed six hundred sheep and ran several citizens 
crazy, — as Seneca circumstantially records. The eruption 
which finally destroyed it is minutely described by Pliny the 
Younger, who saw it. His uncle, old Pliny, also saw it; and I 
may be doing a service to .some of my readers who have an 
itching for looking into things, by recalling to their minds what 
he saw, how he saw it, and what came of his seeing it. 

This old man was an extraordinary person. He. rose before 
other people went to bed, and himself frequently never went 
to bed at all. When he took his meals, instead of eating he 
read; and when he took his bath, instead of washing himself he 
read also. When he was so broken down that he could no 
longer hold his book before his eyes, he made somebody read 
to him. It made no difference to him what the book was, for 
it was a maxim of his that no book can be so bad as not to have 
some good in it. When he was not reading he was writing, and 
when his fingers became so cramped that they refused to wrig- 
gle, he ordered up an amanuensis. He never went out of the 
house without his note-book, and took down every bird, beast, 
and fish, stratum of brick-bats, ash formation, and bilge-water 
current that he set eyes on. What it was impossible for him to 
find out by his individual researches he got from anybody that 
he thought ought to know, and hence consulted much with the 
country people and sea-faring men, whose accounts of natural 
phenomena he carefully recorded. By proceeding in this man- 
ner he accumulated an awful amount of inestimable facts, com- 
ing at last to be steeped to the very eye-brows in wisdom, and 
knowing more or less of everything. 

One day while on duty with the Roman fleet at Misenum — 
for he was a great office-holder as well as man of science — he 



164 READING AND ORATORY. 

espied a good-sized cloud of vapor, shaped like a pine-tree, is- 
suing from some mountain on shore A common man in such 
a neighborhood, seeing such a sight, would have jumped at the 
conclusion that it portended a dangerous outbreak of Vesuvius, 
and run away. Not so this uncommon man. Nothing short of 
close and minute ocular inspection could satisfy the rigid re- 
quirements of his practical mind. This thing must be looked 
into, said he; and gathering up his note-book, he ordered a 
vessel to take him on the expedition. His nephew, young Pliny, 
was at that time a student of his, and the old man wishing to 
afford him every opportunity of improving himself in knowledge, 
kindly invited him to go along. This youth subsequently be- 
came extremely erudite himself, and even at this early age 
showed that he was rather wiser than his uncle, for on the pres- 
ent occasion he declined the offer with thanks, — ingeniously 
alleging that he wished to do some studying, — a plea than 
which none upon earth could have been more satisfactory to 
the old man. 

Pliny the Elder accordingly put off alone, courageously 
poking about in places into which his crew begged him for 
Heaven's sake not to venture. But like any man of superemi- 
nent talent, he had a proper contempt of these illiterate igno- 
ramuses, and heartily despising their fears pushed along till he 
reached a point where even his strong and sappy head began to 
crack and bake under the hot ashes and big rocks that came 
down upon it by the cart-load. And now for a moment he had a 
mind to shut up his note-book and go back, especially as the 
land seemed to be turning inside out, and the sea to be flowing 
away, and probably he would have done so, had not the unlet- 
tered ass of a pilot strenuously urged it upon him. As it was, 
however, the intrepid old philosopher concluded to make the 
best of his way to the house of Pomponianus, a friend of his 
residing at Stabise. "Fortune favors the brave," screamed he, 
though the event proved him to have been something too credu- 
lous in this aphorism, for he was suffocated that self-same 
night. 

He appears to have maintained his philosophical equanimity 



A PLEA FOR IIONORABI E PEACF. 165 

to the last, for on reaching Pomponianus's premises he very 
coolly lay down and went fast asleep, which no one else dared 
to do, and was getting very comfortably blocked in and buried 
alive by the stones which were constantly falling around the en- 
trance to his chamber, when his friends ventured to wake him 
up. A crisis being thought to have now arrived, a council of 
war was held to determine what was best to be done, old Pliny 
assisting. It was resolved to take to the fields — a resolution 
which, says Pliny the Younger point-blank, the council was 
scared into — " except my uncle," says he, " who embraced it upon 
cool and deliberate consideration." And here his uncle was 
peremptorily obliged by the force of circumstances to sacrifice 
somewhat of the dignity of mien characteristic of the sage, for 
he had to surmount his head with a pillow tied thereupon to 
save it from being staved in by the descending stones. Thus 
arrayed, he proceeded with the rest to the sea-shore, where he 
lay down again — being, it should seem, in these stirring times, 
most remarkably sleepy for a man commonly so wide-awake. 
A great burst of sulphurous vapor compelled him to rise im- 
mediately, and at that moment he died. So ended Pliny the 
Elder — a martyr to science, say we men — a victim to curiosity, 
will say the women. william h. taylor. 



A PLEA FOR HONORABLE PEACE. 

I AM for peace, gentlemen. There is nothing on eartl* 
which I so much desire. I pray for peace. The Saviour 0/ 
mankind was the Prince of Peace. His mission among men* 
was to establish peace and good-will upon earth. The spirit of 
peace is the foundation of all true happiness and greatnes;? 
among men. It mangles no bodies — it desolates no fields — • 
burns no towns — sends up no wail fl"om fields of carnage. 
Disease, famine, and pestilence are not the attendants of peace. 
The war may be continued for months and for years; but 
peace must ultimately come. Will you have an honorable 



1 66 READING AND ORATORY. 

peace now, while it may be obtained, or wait till the spirit of 
desolation itself cries for peace; and the ghost of a once great 
and prosperous nation, pale and emaciated with loss of blood, 
shall remain the scorn and contempt of all wise and magnani- 
mous people? 

Your Government may pass, without right, acts of confisca- 
tion, and execute them by the sword; but such acts will neither 
restore the Union nor conquer the free spirit of the South. 
The British Parliament, between the reign of Edward I. and 
the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII., passed no less 
than fifteen acts of confiscation against the little principality of 
Wales, without producing the slightest change in the minds of 
the Welsh people. The first-named King caused the Bards — 
the poets of the ancient Cymri — to be murdered, from policy, 
because by the songs and hymns of freedom which they com- 
posed and sang they kept the fire of public liberty burning in 
the hearts of the people. It was hoped that when the voice of 
freedom was thus stifled, the Welsh would yield their necks 
to the yoke which the King wished to impose, renounce their 
ancient Celtic tongue, and blend with the English. But neither 
force nor fraud could conquer and enslave them. "No! spite 
of the massacres of Bards and the burning of records — spite of 
political extinction — there are a million of these Cymri in 
Wales and its marshes; and nine out often of these speak their 
old tongue — follow their old customs — sing the songs which 
the sleepers upon Snowden made — have their religious rites in 
Cymric, and hate the Logrian as much as ever their fathers 

did." T. G. C. DAVIS. 



THE RED OLD HILLS OF GEORGIA. 

THE red old hills of Georgia! 
So bold, and bare, and bleak — 
Their memory fills my spirit 
With thoughts I cannot speak. 



THE RED OLD HILLS OF GEORGIA. 167 

They have no robe of verdure, 

Stript naked to the blast; 
And yet of all the varied earth 

I love them best at last. 

The red old hills of Georgia! 

My heart is on them now; 
Where, fed from golden streamlets, 

Oconee's waters flow! 
I love them with devotion, 

Though washed so bleak and bare; — 
How can my spirit e'er forget 

The warm hearts dwelling there? 

I love them for the living, — 

The generous, kind, and gay; 
And for the dead who slumber 

Within their breast of clay 
1 love them for the bounty 

Which cheers the social hearth; 
I love them for their rosy girls, 

The fairest on the earth. 

The red old hills of Georgia! 

Where, where, upon the face 
Of earth is freedom's spirit 

More bright in any race? — 
In Switzerland and Scotland 

Each patriot breast it fills. 
But sure it blazes brighter yet 

Among our Georgia hills! 

And where, upon their surface. 

Is heart to feeling dead? — 
And when has needy stranger 

Gone from those hills unfed? 
There bravery and kindness 

For aye go hand in hand, 
Upon your washed and naked hills, 

"My own, my native land!" 



1 68 READING AND ORATORY. 

The red old hills of Georgia! 

I never can forget; 
Amid life's joys and sorrows, 

My heart is on them yet; — 
And when my course is ended, 

When life her web has wove, 
Oh! may I then, beneath those hills. 

Lie close to them I love! 

HENRY. R. JACKSON. 



COMMENCEMENT DAY. 

COMMENCEMENT DAY! All hail the one great college 
holiday and festival! The Independence Day of Bacca- 
laureates, the Saturnalia of under- graduates! How many hearts 
have bounded to this day! How many bound every year, and 
will bound to the end of the chapter! To-day Seniors are 
transformed into Alumni, students into men of the world; and 
all collegians, of whatever class and degree, are jubilant, and 
pour forth heart and voice in joyous greetings; for what is it 
but a foretaste of the felicity that is in reserve for each one in 
his turn? Who that has participated can ever forget the acces- 
sories of the occasion? The day, is it not always, by express 
bespeaking, "the very bridal of the^arth and sky" ? The/rc- 
cessiofj, so hilarious, so irrepressible, that the young Alumnus, 
annually chosen as marshal, seldom fails to declare, at the close 
of his official duty, that the keeping of the ranks in'order was 
his hardest day's work yet! And the brilliant audience, that 
spreads itself out, like some beautiful garden, variegated and 
flushed with flowers of every kind, shape, and hue, at the very 
feet of the heroes of the day. 

Upon the platform, crowded with the virtue and learning of" 
the city and State, stands forth the young candidate for college 
honors and public favor, modest but unabashed, trembling with 
sensibility, but not with doubt or fear. And he is worthy to be 
observed and honored. Few persons know the price of distinc- 



COMMENCEMENT DAY. 1 69 

tion. Accident, self-indulgence, or fitful application cannot win 
it. By patient study through laborious days and long and 
silent watches of the night, at peril of health, with many a sacri- 
fice of pleasure to duty, but with an unflinching determination to 
win the palm of excellence, he has worked his way up to this 
honorable position. And his hour of triumph is come. Faces that 
he never saw before, that never saw him before, are turned 
upon him with curious and admiring gaze. Friends look and 
listen with rapt attention. The eye of the father kindles, and his 
manly pride is aroused, as he beholds, in the inheritor of his name, 
an object of general admiration, a rising hope and expectancy of 
the State. But who shall depict the feelings of the gentle 
mother! Her meek and glad surprise; her ill-disguised efforts 
to keep back the tears of joy that will spring in spite of her! 
Her rich and full over-payment of delight for every loving care 
and anxious foreboding, for nights of weariness and days of 
sorrow cheerfully borne for his sake, and for all the manifold 
trials, sacrifices, and ministcrings of that great and abounding 
affection, that wondrous, holy love, without all parallel or com- 
pare, that has its well-spring in the maternal breast! And, 
perchance, deep down in the recesses of the heart of 
some fair maiden, there stirs a feeling of conscious sympathy, 
that makes no sign, save that it trembles in the half-averted eye 
and paints itself in the faintest of blushes on her delicate cheek, 
and which, though" it brings upon her spirit a sort of trouble 
new and strange, fills it with emotions of pleasure that she does 
not care to repress, and hopes that may not be confessed. 

Collegians! It is a noble thing to deserve and win the ap- 
plause of the wise and good, and the approving smiles of the 
gentle and fair; and you may take with you the assurance, 
which one day, perhaps, you will realize, that although after-life 
may have its noble ambitions, and its brilliant and solid 
rewards, you will find none sweeter or purer than that which 
first woke a father's pride, and recompensed a noble mother's 
self-denying cares, and challenged the coy and innocent cham- 
pionship of charming Sixteen! 

W. D. PORTER. 



170 READING AND ORATORY 



LOVE FOR KENTUCKY AND HER PEOPLE. 

I HAD no thought, my countrymen, of being called before you 
again after so long an interval; and it is, if possible, still less 
likely that I shall ever again take part in one of your popular as- 
semblies. If God had so willed, it had been my happiness to have 
lived and labored amongst you; to have mingled my dust 
with yours; and to have cast the lot of my children in the same 
heritage with yours. Wherever I live or wherever I die, I shall 
live and die a true Kentuckian. With me, the first of all appel- 
lations is Christian, after that Gentleman, and then Kentuckian. 
The foundations of Society in this unparalleled region were 
laid by hands dear to me as they can be to you; and throughout 
the whole history of the Commonwealth, there is not one scene 
of glory, one monument of success, one proof of advancement, 
one evidence of greatness, one day of trial with which my kin- 
dred and my friends have not been associated; so your fame 
is precious to my heart as the warm currents which gush 
through it. The fields of battle where our forefathers fought, 
I know them all. Every green hillock over which your flocks 
graze dwells in my memory; and the running streams, along 
which your noble boys stray, are clear and fresh in my imagina- 
tion and my heart as when my youthful feet traversed them, 
when your land was almost a wilderness. And am I 
the man to conspire against a land and a people like this? 
Are you the judges who are expected to convict me? No, my 
friends, no! Not a blade of grass on your luxuriant fields 
shall wither forever, if it stands till some act of mine brings 
danger or shame nigh to your habitations. No, my friends, no! 
May God bless you and yours, with his richest benedictions, to 
the thousandth generation; yea, may He forgive even those who 
have sought to do me this great damage of robbing me of 
your good will. r. j. Breckinridge. 

Robert J. Breckinridge, D. D., LL. D., son of John Breckinridge (author of the 
Kentucky Resolutions of '98, U. S. Senator from Kentucky, and Attorney-General under 
Jefferson) and Mary Hopkins Cabell, was born at Cabell's Dale, Fayette Co., Ky., March 
8, 1800. He was highly educated, attending Princeton and Yale, and graduating at Upion 



FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 171 

College in 1819; studied law, and was member of Kentucky Legislature 1825-26-27-28. 
In the winter of 1828-29 a protracted attack of fever wrecked his constitution, making 
him for the remainder of his life an almost constant invalid. Abandoning law, he joined 
the Presbyterian Church, and entered the ministry; was pastor of a church in Balti- 
more from 1832 to 1845, when he resigned to accept the Presidency of Jefferson College, 
Pennsylvania; in 1847 became pastor of church in Lexington, Ky., and Superintendent 
of Public Instruction of the State, both of which positions he resigned in 1853, 'o accept a 
chair in the Danville Theological Seminary, where he remained until 1869. He died 
December 27, 1871. 

Dr. Breckinridge was peculiarly an extemporaneous debater, lecturer, and platform 
orator; and on the floor of his church courts never met his superior. He was a man of 
wonderful versatility and the widest range of information, and had all the physical 
gifts of the orator: a clear, melodious, and flexible voice, distinct articulation, brilliant 
and expressive black eye under a full, iron-gray brow, a mobile countenance, attractive 
and forcible manner, and a tall, graceful, though frail person. He was master of a pure, 
simple, and chaste English style, which expressed his thoughts with remarkable clear- 
ness and elegance, and was at times in the highest degree impassioned. He was early 
in life an emancipationist, and some of his greatest efforts were made on the stump to 
induce Kentucky to adopt some plan of gradual emancipation. He opposed secession, 
and during the war was an intense L'^nion man, establishing a magazine — the Danville 
Rez'iezv — to be his organ, which he made so able that its articles were republished and 
distributed over the whole country. His published writings would fill many volumes, 
while his unwritten sermons, lectures, speeches, and debates were multitudinous. It 
has been said of him that, " Though the son of a distinguished statesman, and connected 
by blood and marriage with the Prestons, Cabells, Hopkinses, Blairs, Campbells, and 
other well-known historic families, yet it is, perhaps, not too much to say that, taking 
him all in all, he was the greatest of his blood." 



THE FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 

IT was in the noontide of Jackson's glory that he fell; but 
what a fall of darkness suddenly shrouded all the land in 
that hour. If any illustration were needed of the hold he had 
acquired on the hearts of our people, on the hearts of the good 
and brave and true throughout all the civilized world, it would be 
found in the universal lament which went up everywhere when 
it was announced that Jackson was dead — from the little girl at 
the Chandler house, who, " wished that God would let her die 
in his stead, because then only her mother would cry; but if 
Jackson died, all the people of the country would cry" — from 
this humble child up to the Commander-in-Chief, who wept as 
only the strong and brave can weep, at the tidings of his fall: 
from the weather-beaten sea captain, who had never seen his face, 



1/2 READING AND ORATORY. 

but who burst into loud, uncontrollable grief, standing on the 
deck of his vessel, with his rugged sailors around him, wonder- 
ing what had happened to break that heart of oak, up to the 
English Ea'rl, honored on both sides of the Atlantic, who ex- 
claimed, when the sad news came to him, " Jackson was in some 
respects the greatest man America ever produced." 

The impressive ceremonies of the hour will bring back to 
some here present the memories of that day of sorrow, when at 
the firing of a gun at the base of yonder monument, a proces- 
sion began to move to the solemn strains of the Dead March in 
Saul — the hearse on which the dead hero lay, preceded by a 
portion of the command of Gen. Pickett, whose funeral ob- 
sequies you have just celebrated, and followed by a mighty 
throng of weeping citizens, until, having made a detour of the 
city, it paused at the door of the Capitol, when the body was 
borne within by reverent hands and laid on an altar erected be- 
neath the dome. 

The Congress of the Confederate States had adopted a device 
for their flag, and one emblazoned with it had just been com- 
pleted, which was intended to be unfurled from the roof of the 
Capitol. It never fluttered from the height it was intended to 
grace. It became Jackson's winding-sheet. Oh! mournful pro- 
phecy of the fate of the Confederacy itself! 

The military authorities shrouded him in the white, red, and 
blue flag of the Confederacy. The citizens decked his bier 
with the white, red, and blue flowers of spring until they rose 
high above it, a soft floral pyramid; but the people everywhere 
embalmed him in their hearts with a love sweeter than all the 
fragrance of spring, and immortal as the verdure of the trees 
under which he now rests by the river of life. 

And where in all the annals of the world's sorrow for departed 
worth, was there such a pathetic impersonation of a nation's 
grief, as was embodied in the old mutilated veteran of Jackson's 
division, who, as the shades of evening fell, and when the 
hour for the closing of the doors of the Capitol came, and 
when the lingering throng was warned to retire, was seen 
anxiously pressing through the crowd to take his last look 



1 



FUNERAL OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 1 73 

at the face of his beloved leader. " They told him he was 
too late; that they were closing up the coffin for the last time; 
that the order had been given to clear the hall. He still strug- 
gled forward, refusing to take a denial, until one of the mar- 
shals of the day was about to exercise his authority to force him 
back; upon this the old soldier lifted the stump of his right 
arm toward the heavens, and with tears running down his 
bearded face, exclaimed, ' By this arm, which I lost for my 
country, I demand the privilege of seeing my General once 
more.' Such an appeal was irresistible, and at the instance of 
the Governor of the commonwealth, the pomp was arrested 
until this humble comrade had also dropped his tear upon the 
face of his dead leader." 

MOSES D. HOGE. 

Thomas Jonathan Jackson the world-renowned General, was born at Clarksburg, 
Va.,Jaunary 21, 1824. He graduated at West Point 1846, was assigned to the artil- 
lery branch of the service, and at once placed on duty with the army in Mexico, where 
he gained great distinction, being successively brevetted Captain and Major. In 1851 
he resigned his commission in the army, and was appointed Professor of Natural and 
Experimental Philosophy, and Instructor in Artillery, in the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute at Lexington, and here he remained until civil war began. Entering the Confed- 
erate service as Colonel, he rapidly passed through the intermediate grades, and became 
Lieutenant-General. His sobri(}uet of " Stonewall " originated at the battle of Ma- 
nassas : Gen. Bee, in rallying his men, pointed to Jackson and his brigade, and shouted : 
'^ Look! there is yackson^ standing like a stone ■wall!''' In a reconnoissance between 
the hostile lines, after nightfall, at the battle of Chancellorsville, he and his staff were 
mistaken for Federal scouts and fired on by the Confederates. Nearly the entire staff 
were killed and wounded, and Jackson's left arm so shattered as to necessitate amputa- 
tion; pneumonia set in, and he died at Guirei's Station, near Fredicksburg, Va., May 
10, 1863. " Jackson died before he reached the age of forty, and had but two years of 
life for the display of his great faculties. But this period was long enough. In that 
contracted space of time he accomplished results which will render his name and fame 
immortal. Few human beings ever equalled him in the great art of making war,^ 
fewer still in purity of heart and life. It was a nature almost altogether lovely which 
lay under that faded uniform of the great soldier. No stain of insincerity, or mean- 
ness, or vaingloriousness marred a character which combined the loftiest virtues of the 
gentleman, the soldier, and the Christian."— John Esten Cooke. In 1875 some English 
gentlemen, "as a tribute of admiration for the soldier and patriot," presented to the 
State of Virginia a bronze statue of Jackson— heroic size— by Foley, which was erected 
on the Capital Square at Richmond. 



1/4 READING AND ORATORY. 



GOING OUT AND COMING IN, 

GOING out to fame and triumph, 
Going out to love and light; 
Coming in to pain and sorrow, 

Coming in to gloom and night. 
Going out with joy and gladness. 
Coming in with woe and sin; — 
Ceaseless stream of restless pilgrims 
Going out and coming in! 

Through the portals of the homestead, 

From beneath the blooming vine; 
To the trumpet-tones of glory, 

Where the bays and laurels twine; 
From the loving home-caresses 

To the chill voice of the world — 
Going out with gallant canvas 

To the Summer breeze unfurled. 

Through the gateway, down the footpath, 

Through the lilacs by the way; 
Through the clover by the meadow. 

Where the gentle home-lights stray; 
To the wide world of ambition. 

Up the toilsome hill of fame, 
Winning oft a mighty triumph, 

Winning oft a noble name. 

Coming back all worn and weary — 

Weary with the world's cold breath; 
Coming to the dear old homestead, 

Coming in to age and death. 
Weary of its empty flattery. 

Weary of its ceaseless din. 
Weary of its heartless sneering — 

Coming from the bleak world in. 



THE DUTY OF SOUTHERNERS. 175 

Going out with hopes of glory, 

Coming in with sorrows dark; 
Going out with sails all flying, 

Coming in with mastless barque; — 
Restless stream of pilgrims, striving 

Wreaths of fame and love to win, 
From the doorways of the homestead 

Going out and coming in! 

MOLLIE E. MOORE DAVIS. 



THE DUTY OF SOUTHERNERS AFTER THE 

WAR. 

AN officer leading his men into battle, himself going first 
and charging home upon the enemy, with the high and 
lofty daring of a hero, rallying his troops when they waver, 
cheering when they advance, applauding the brave, and sus- 
taining the faint-hearted, bearing aloft the colors of his com- 
mand, and struggling with all the strength and spirit of manhood, 
resolving to conquer or to perish, is esteemed one of the noblest 
exhibitions of which man is capable. We thrill and burn as 
we read the glowing story, exhaust the language of praise, in 
extolling his virtues. But not less glorious, not less worthy the 
commendations of his countrymen, is he who in an hour like 
this bravely submits to fate, and scorning alike the promptings 
of despair, and the unmanly refuge of expatriation, rushes to 
the rescue of his perishing country, inspires his fellow-citizens 
with hope, cheers the disconsolate, arouses the sluggish, lifts up 
the helpless and the feeble, and by voice and example, in every 
possible way, urges forward all to the blessed and bloodless and 
crowning victories of peace. It is a noble thing to die for one's 
country; it is a higher and a nobler thing to live for it. 

The best test of the best heroism now, is a cheerful and loyal 
submission to the powers and events established by our defeat, 
and a ready obedience to the Constitution and laws of our 
country. Being denied the immortal distinction of dying for 



176 READING AND ORATORY. 

your country, as did your fathers and your eldest brothers, you 
may yet rival their glory, by living for it, if you will live wisely, 
earnestly and well. The greatest campaign for which soldiers 
ever buckled on armor is now before you. The drum beats, 
and the bugle sounds to arms to repel invading poverty and 
destitution, which have seized our strongholds and are waging 
war, cruel and ruthless, upon our women and children. The 
teeming earth is blockaded by the terrible lassitude of exhaus- 
tion, and we are required, through toil and tribulation, to retake 
as by a storm, that prosperity and happiness, which were once 
our own, and to plant our banners firmly upon their everlasting 
ramparts, amid the plaudits of a redeemed aud regenerated 
people. The noblest soldier, now, is he that, with axe and 
plough, pitches his tent against the waste places of his fire- 
blasted home, and swears that from its ruins there shall arise 
another like unto it, and that from its barren fields there shall 
come again the gladdening sheen of dew-gemmed meadows, in 
the rising, and the golden waves of ripening harvests, in the 
setting sun! This is a besieging of fate itself; a hand-to-hand 
struggle with the stern columns of calamity and despair. But 
the God of nature hath promised that it shall not fail, when 
courage, faith, and industry sustain the assailant; and this vic- 
tory, won without one drop of human blood, unstained by a 
single tear, imparting and receiving blessings on every hand, 
will be such as the wise and good of all the earth may applaud, 
and over which even the angels might unite in rejoicing. 

Z. B. VANCE. 



THE RESULTS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 

THE results of higher education cannot always be weighed, 
but neither can gravitation, and gravitation is weight itself. 
Culture, by broadening the intellect, assists to a fit estimate of the 
aims and ends of virtuous life; by affording themes of pleasing 
thought it allays the heat of anger and of passion, rebukes a 
fretful anxiety, and, by its sublimating and joy-giving enter- 



THE RESULTS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 177 

tainments, abates or removes the ennui oi existence, and soothes 
the spirit when smitten by the rod of adversity; it refines the 
sensibiUties, cultivates the taste, prepares for rational pleasures, 
and thereby causes a protesting disgust of denobling pursuits 
and licentious appetites and desires. 

Ah, is there not a soul-wealth more to be coveted than silver or 
gold — a higher communion than that which springs up in the 
market-place! The mere money-monger has no conception of 
the ravished mood in which Newton approached the solution of 
his great problem of the Cosmos; or in which Copernicus, with 
the measuring rod of mathematics, marshalled worlds into 
order, and mapped their mighty paths; or in which Coleridge's 
heart "leaped up" when he beheld "a rainbow in the sky." 

Higher education, while productive of material wealth, tran- 
scends in purpose a mere worldly, craven, pig-iron philosophy, 
and though it respects the earth and harnesses its draft horses, 
it also mounts upon wings, like eagles, and cuts a path through 
the starry zodiac. When a man has ascended the ladder whose 
foot rests on the earth, and whose topmost round leans on a 
star, though every intervening rung should slip from its socket, 
he would retain his altitude, and yet be not dizzy at the depths 
beneath, nor dazed at the sunny heights above. Learning lifts 
the mind into the ether region of the imagination and to the 
starry summits of taste and reason, and though the ascending 
may not be traceable, its devotee lingers, the enraptured be- 
holder of revolving and glittering constellations. 

H. A. M. HENDERSON. 

Howard A. M. Henderson was born in Paris, Ky., August 13, 1836. He received 
a university education, studied law, but abandoned it for theology and joined the Ken- 
tucky Conference in 1857. Entered the Confederate service as Captain, but was pro- 
moted to Lieutenant-Colonel and Commissioner for excliange of prisoners. In 1871, 
elected Superintendent of Public Instruction of Kentucky, re-elected in 1874; and his 
State owes him a debt of gratitude for his masterly development of an almost perfect 
plan of public education. He is Grand Master of Kentucky of I. O. O. F., and edits 
the Odd Fellow and the Kentucky Freemason. His sermons, speeches, lectures, and 
contributions to current literary periodicals have been very numerous and popular. 



178 READING AND ORATORY. 



MATT. F. WARD'S TRIAL FOR MURDER. 

C"^ ENTLEMEN, my task is done, the decision of this case 
T — the fate of this prisoner — is in your hands. Guilty or 
innocent — life or death — whether the captive shall joyfully 
go free, or be consigned to a disgraceful and ignominious death 
— all depend on a few words from you. Is there anything in 
this world more like Omnipotence, more like the power of the 
Eternal, than that you now possess ? 

Yes, you are to decide; and, as I leave the case with you, I 
implore you to consider it well and mercifully before you pro- 
nounce a verdict of guilty, — a verdict which is to cut asunder 
all the tender cords that bind heart to heart, and to consign 
this young man, in the flower of his days and in the midst of his 
hopes, to shame and to death. Such a verdict must often come 
up in your recollections — must live forever in your minds. 

And in after-days, when the wild voice of clamor that now 
fills the air is hushed — when memory shall review this busy 
scene, should her accusing voice tell you you have dealt hardly 
with a brother's life, — that you have sent him to death, when 
you have a doubt whether it is not your duty to restore him to 
life, — oh, what a moment that must be — how like a cancer will 
that remembrance prey upon your hearts! 

But if, on the other hand, having rendered a contrary ver- 
dict, you feel that there should have been a conviction, — that 
sentiment will be easily satisfied; you will say, "If I erred, it 
was on the side of mercy; thank God I incurred no hazard by 
condemning a man I thought innocent." How different the 
memory from that which may come in any calm moment, by 
day or by night, knocking at the door of your hearts, and re- 
minding you that in a case where you were doubtful, by your 
verdict you sent an innocent man to disgrace and to death! Oh, 
pronounce no such, I beseech you, but on the most certain, 
clear, and solid grounds! If you err, for your own sake, as well 
as his, keep on the side of humanity, and save him from so dis- 
honorable a fate — preserve yourselves from so bitter a memory. 



MATT. F. WARD S TRIAL FOR MURDER. 1 79 

I am no advocate, gentlemen, of any criminal licentiousness, — 
I desire that society may be protected, that the laws of my coun- 
try may be obeyed and enforced. Any other state of things I 
should deplore; but I have examined this case, I think, carefully 
and calmly; I see much to regret — much that I wish had never 
happened; but I see no evil intentions and motives — no 
wicked malignity, and, therefore, no murder — no felony. 

There is another consideration of which we should not be 
unmindful. We are all conscious of the infirmities of our na- 
ture — we are all subject to them. The law makes an allow- 
ance for such infirmities. The Author of our being has been 
pleased to fashion us out of great and mighty elements, which 
make us but a little lower than the angels, but he has mingled 
in our composition, weakness and passions. Will He punish 
us for frailties which nature has stamped upon us, or for their 
necessary results? The distinction between these and acts thai 
proceed from a wicked and malignant heart is founded on 
eternal justice, and in the words of the Psalmist, "He know- 
eth our frame — He remembereth that we are dust." Shall not 
the rule He has established be good enough for us to judge by? 

Gentlemen, the case is closed. Again I ask you to consider 
it well, before you pronounce a verdict which shall consign this 
prisoner to a grave of ignominy and dishonor. These are no 
idle words you have heard so often. This is your fellow-citi- 
zen — a youth of promise — the rose of his family — the possessor 
of all kind, and virtuous, and manly qualities. It is the blood 
of a Kentuckian you are called upon to shed. The blood that 
flows in his veins has come down from those noble pioneers 
who laid the foundations for the greatness and glory of our 
State; it is the blood of a race who have never spared it when 
demanded by their country's cause. It is his fate you are to 
decide. I excite no poor, unmanly sympathy — I appeal to no 
low, grovelling spirit. He is a man — you are men — and I only 
want that sympathy which man can give to man. 

I will not detain you longer. But you know, and it is right 
you should, the terrible suspense in which some of these hearts 
must beat during your absence. It is proper for you to con- 



l8o READING AND ORATORY. 

sider this, for, in such a case, all the feelings of the mind and 
heart should sit in council together, Your duty is yet to be 
done; perform it as you are ready to answer for it, here and 
hereafter. Perform it calmly and dispassionately, rememlier- 
ing that vengeance can give no satisfaction to any human be- 
ing. But if you exercise it in this case, it will spread black mid- 
night and despair over many aching hearts. May the God of 
all mercy be with you in your deliberations, assist you in the 
performance of your duty, and teach you to judge your fellow- 
being as you hope to be judged hereafter! 

JOHN J. CRITTENDEN. 

John Jordan Crittenden, eminent as jurist and statesman, was born in Woodford 
Co., Ky., September lo, 17S7. His education was such only as could be obtained at a 
school in that then wild region; read law under Judge G. M. Bibb, completed his legal 
studies at William and Mary College, Virginia, and returned to his native county to 
practice his profession; was aide-de-camp to Governor Shelby in the vi^ar of 1812, and 
took part in the battle of the Thames; acquired great fame as a criminal lawyer, in 1816 
became Speaker of the House in the Kentucky Legislature, and in 1817 was elected 
U, S. Senator,— an honor repeated in 1835, 1843, and 1855; appointed Attorney-General 
of United States in 1841, and again in 1850; elected Governor of Kentucky in 1848. He 
was ardently attached to the Union, and did all in his power to avert its disruption, offer- 
ing the famous Crittenden Compromise Resolutions, which were rejected by Congress. 
Great, without ambition for place or prominence; brave, virtuous, and self-deny- 
ing, from the instincts of his nature, he was the model of a citizen, a patriot, and a gen. 
tleman, He died July 26, 1863. 



THE GARRET. 

[ From the French of Beranger. ] 

THE asylum once more I behold where my youth 
Learned the lessons to Poverty's self that belong— 
I was twenty — I had a fond mistress, forsooth, 

A few trusty friends, and a liking for song. 
The world then I braved, both its wits and its wights 

With no thought of the future, but rich in my May — 
Light, joyous, I climbed up the stairway six flights^ 
O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! 

'Tis a Garret, that fact I wish none to forget! 
There once stood my bed, hard and shabby withal, 



THE GARRET. l8l 

My table stood there, and I find there are yet, 
In charcoal, some fragments of verse on the wall. 

Come back! O ye joys at life's beautiful dawn, 
Whom Time, with a flap of his wing, beat away — 

How often for you has my watch been in pawn! 
O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay' 

Lisette, above all, should appear to our view, 

Blithe, lovely, in freshly-trimmed hat as of yore, 
At the window her hand has already, in lieu 

Of a curtain, suspended the shawl that she wore — 
My bed, too, is prettily decked with her dress, 

Its folds loose and flowing, Love spare them, I pray! 
Who paid for it all? I have heard, I confess! 

O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! 

At the table one day when abundant the cheer, 

And the voice of my comrades in chorus rang high, 
A shout of rejoicing mounts up even here, 

At Marengo Napoleon is victor! they cry — ■ 
Hark, the thunder of guns! — a new stave loudly rings, 

As to deeds so resplendent our homage we pay; 
Never, never, shall France be invaded by kings! 

O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! 

Let us go! — for my reason is drunk as with wine — 

How distant those days, so regretted, appear! 
What is left me to live I would gladly resign 

For one month such as Heaven has allotted me here — 
Of Glory, Love, Pleasure, and Folly to dream, 

The whole of existence to spend in a day — 
And Hope to illumine that day with her beam — 

O Life in a Garret, at twenty, is gay! 

JOHN R. THOMPSON. 

John R. Thompson, poet, was born in Richmond, Va., October 23, 1825, received his 
education at the University of Virginia, studied law, but abandoned it for literature. 
For sixteen years he was editor of the Southern Literary Messenger^ and contributed 
many poems and prose articles to the current periodicals, but never published a book. 
He yisjted Europe in f8s4, and made wamj friend^ of Djckgns, Thackeray, Bulwer, 



l82 READING AND ORATORY. 

Macaulay, the Brownings, Tennyson, and other literary celebrities. In 1866 he became 
one of the editorial staff of the New York E7>ening Post, in whose service he died 
April 30, 1873. His remains were interred in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, and in 
1876, from the joint contributions of Southern and Northern friends, a monument was 
erected over the grave, " To the graceful poet, the brilliant writer, the steadfast friend, 
the loyal Virginian, the earnest and consistent Christian." 



COMANCHE BOY. 

Sweet child of the forest and prairie, 
Say, where have thy dusky tribe gone? 

Have they silently passed as the shadows 
That flit 'neath the cloud-veiled moon? 

Have they folded their tents neath the greenwood- 
Have they gone to some far hunting-ground, 

Where the buffalo roameth at pleasure, 
And the fleet-footed dun deer is found? 

Or on the red trail of the war-path. 

Do thy stern chieftains seek for the foe? 

And the songs of their gay plumed warriors. 
Are they breathing out vengeance and woe? 

They are gone to the land of the West Wind: 
In the mountain's rock-caverns, a home 

They have found, where the voice of the torrent 
Roars loud from its white bed of foam. 

As the lingering rays of the sunset 
O'er woodland and prairie are thrown, 

As the soft, hazy Indian Summer 

Is a dream of the summer that's gone: — 

So the day of their glory is over, 

And out on the desolate waste 
The far-scattered remnants yet hover. 

Like shades of the long-vanished past. 



ADDRESS ON FREEMASONRY. 1 83 

Do you sigh for your green forest bowers, 
For your playmates, the gentle-eyed fawns — 

For the sweet buds that change to bright flowers, 
And smile as the young morning dawns? 

Come, rest in the home of the pale-face. 

And turn not, to sigh and to weep 
For the wandering tribe of Ishmael 

That shall fade as a vision of sleep. 

FANNIE A. D. DARDEN. 



ADDRESS ON FREEMASONRY. 

WE are assembled to-night under circumstances of peculiar 
and profound interest to the Mason. On the anniver- 
sary of St. John, we are met together to assist in the ceremonies 
of an Order that was inspired by King Solomon, more than ten 
centuries before the birth of the Evangelist. The Old and the 
New Dispensations are thus united on this memorial occasion by 
the arch that spans this interval of time. The lessons of virtue 
and wisdom that were taught nearly three thousand years ago 
in the Temple on Mount Moriah, and that have been promul- 
gated through the appointed instrumentalities of Jehovah Him- 
self, are repeated in the pious exhortations of the Apostle. The 
spirit of Freemasonry that warmed the hearts of both blends 
their memories in one, as in the living, it joins together the affec- 
tions in a common brotherhood. 

The motto of our ancient fraternity is Brotherly Love, Re- 
lief, AND Truth; and the conflicts of thirty centuries have de- 
monstrated that its beautiful maxim is no boastful and meaningless 
inscription. The Brotherly Love of the brethren is founded in 
their common faith, it is perpetuated by their mutual covenants, 
and it is kept aglow by their reciprocal kindness; it creates the 
bond of union unknown to men except that they " have love 
one to another"; it instills into their hearts the sublime and 
unselfish doctrine that "we ought to lay down our lives for the 



184 READING AND ORATORY. 

brethren"; it excites the holiest emulation — "provoking unto 
love and good works"; it begets a multitude of pleasures, and 
it averts the pangs of a thousand ills. Such is the brotherly 
love of the Freemason. More pure than the Odyssean friendship 
that Homer sung, more gentle than the loves embalmed by Virgil 
in his immortal verse, and more inviolable than the attachment 
that united Damon and Pythias, it combines the higher quali- 
ties of them all. It fears not to offend in the solemn discharge 
of duty It reproves the follies of those who are the objects of 
its watchfulness, but its frankness of reproval is softened by 
gentleness; it admonishes, but its admonitions are tempered by a 
spirit of kindness; it exhorts to acts of public and private 
duty, but its exhortations are clothed in the language of meek- 
ness. Like the love of David and Jonathan, it knits the souls of 
men in a wedlock that human passion cannot divorce. 

The second Masonic virtue in the trinity of attributes is Relief. 
Every country in the civilized world contains enduring monu- 
ments of Masonic beneficence and philanthropy. The poor 
and the infirm, the widow and the orphan, the sick and the 
sorrowing, the forsaken and the outcast, have all pillowed their 
heads on the bosom of Masonry, and there wept the tears of 
gratitude or repentance. 

The third virtue in this triune motto of the Mason, and the 
very Paraclete of the trinity, is Truth. All other things are 
mortal and transitory. Truth alone is immutable and eternal; 
it is the attribute of Him whose pure mind knows no dissimula- 
tion. It belongs to the noblest type of man, and signalizes 
its possessor as the highest ideal of his kind. The truthful 
mind escapes from communion with deceit and falsehood as the 
sound body flies from contact with physical pollution and dis- 
ease. The foul and ignoble character of a lia'r is tainted with 
a leprosy that neither position nor power can cure, and that all 
the gold of Ophir cannot make respectable. The good Mason 
must love truth as St. John loved it, he must scorn every artifice 
that would conceal it; he must despise every subterfuge or eva- 
sion by which it can be perverted. As St. John greatly re- 
joiced that the children of Electa " walked in the truth,' and 



CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN. 1 85 

as he commended Gaius because "the truth was in him," so 
should every Mason, hke this patron of his craft, commend in 
his walk and conversation the Godlike attribute of Truth. 

The motto of Freemasonry thus reveals the virtues its dis- 
ciples are to practise. In its symbolic language, Brotherly 
Love may be called the column of strength which binds us as 
one family in the bond of fraternal affection; Relief, the 
column of beauty, whose adornments are the widow's tear of 
joy and the orphan's prayer of gratitude; and Truth, the 
column of wisdom from whose alabaster surface are reflected 
the pure white rays that illumine the understanding and chase 
away the lingering shades of folly and deceit. 

V. O. KING. 



CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN. 

MR. CALHOUN'S moral character, as exhibited to the 
public, was of the Roman stamp. Lofty in his senti- 
ments, stern in his bearing, inflexible in his opinions, there 
was no sacrifice he would not have made without a moment's 
hesitation, and few that he did not make, to his sense of duty 
and his love of country. As a Consul, he would have been a 
Publicola, — as a Censor, Cato, — as a Tribune, Gracchus. He 
was often denounced for his ambition, but his integrity was 
never questioned. "Ambition is," as Mr. Burke justly said, 
"the malady of very extensive genius." Mr. Calhoun's ene- 
mies believed that it infected him to an extraordinary and dan- 
gerous degree. But the enemies of every distinguished man 
have said the same. He undoubtedly desired power. But 
there is no evidence to be found, either in his conduct or in 
his words, that he ever stooped to any mean compliance to ob- 
tain it, or that when obtained, he ever used it but in the 
purest manner and for the welfare of his whole country. The 
nature of his ambition was well tested. Eight years Vice-Pres- 
ident; for as long a period a Minister of State; six years in the 
House of Representatives, and fifteen in the Senate of the 



1 86 READING AND ORATORY. 

United States, he enjoyed all the power of the highest offices 
of our Government save the very highest, and that he would in 
all human probability have attained, but that his aspirations 
were subordinate to his principles, and these led him to repudi- 
ate his party, and throw himself into opposition to its corrup- 
tions when it was at the zenith of its power. That he did not 
reach the Presidency, and that no other statesman of the first 
rank has had the slightest prospect of reaching it for the last 
five-and-twenty years, are among the most striking proofs of the 
downward tendency of our Federal institutions. 

The intellect of Mr. Calhoun was cast in the Grecian mould: 
intuitive, profound, original — descending to the minutest details 
of practical affairs; and soaring aloft with balanced wing into 
the highest heaven of invention. He appreciated wit and humor, 
the flights of fancy and the keen shafts of sarcasm; but he 
either did not possess or entirely failed to cultivate the facul- 
ties which lead to distinction in these lines. He admired and 
valued high-toned declamation on appropriate occasions; and 
sometimes, though rarely, attempted it himself, and not without 
success. The force of his imagination, his command of lan- 
guage, his nobility of sentiment, and his enthusiastic tempera- 
ment eminently qualified him for declamation of the highest 
order, and his themes were as well adapted to it as those of 
Demosthenes himself. But the audience to which he com- 
monly addressed himself could not hear his voice, or see his 
action, or decide his cause, under the spell of eloquence. It 
covered millions of square miles,and reached far down the stream 
of time. And his keen judgment and deep earnestness would 
not often permit him to use weapons that could reach effectively 
those only who were near at hand. His intellectual power 
was due mainly to the facility and accuracy with which he re- 
solved propositions into their elementary principles: and the 
astonishing rapidity with which he deduced from these 
principles all their just and necessary consequences. The mo- 
ment a sophism was presented to him he pierced it through and 
through, and plunging into the labyrinth, brought truth from 
the remote recesses where she delights to dwell, and placed her 



I 



CHARACTER AND GENIUS OF CALHOUN. 18/ 

in her native simplicity before the eyes of men. It was in these 
pre-eminent faculties that Mr. Calhoun's mind resembled the 
antique, and particularly the genuine Greek mind, which re- 
coiled from plausibilities, and looked with ineffable disgust on 
that mere grouping of associated ideas which so generally 
passes for reasoning. It was in conformity with these great 
intellectual endowments that he created all his speeches and 
state papers. 

. In private life Mr. Calhoun was remarkably accessible. Open, 
unsuspicious, mild in his manners, and uniformly warm, cheer- 
ful, and hopeful, he was interesting, instructive, and agreeable to 
all who had the happiness to know him, while in every do- 
mestic relation his conduct approached as near perfection as we 
can suppose human nature capable of doing. 

But it is on his character as a Statesman that the fame of 
Mr. Calhoun will chiefly rest. Posterity, with a knowledge of 
events yet concealed from us, will analyze it closely. It is be- 
lieved that it will stand the most rigid scrutiny. Coming into 
the public councils at a period when twenty years of successful 
experiment had, it was thought, fully tested our Federal Con- 
stitution, and established the permanence of the Federal Gov- 
ernment — when a vigorous effort to convert it into a central 
despotism had been signally defeated, and all sectional jeal- 
ousies and apprehensions had been lulled, — Mr. Calhoun devoted 
himself wholly and enthusiastically to the grand purpose of de- 
veloping all the mighty resources of his country, and raising 
her to the highest pitch of prosperity and greatness. His views 
were large — far-reaching — noble. And his measures were in 
full accordance with them. Whenever, in war or in peace, an 
exigency occurred, his active and inventive genius promptly sug- 
gested a provision for it, always ample, and usually the best 
that could be adopted. He had an ineffable scorn for what- 
ever was mean or contracted in legislation; and having an 
abiding confidence, not only in truth and justice, but in the 
power of reason, and the capacity of the people to appreciate 
what" was right and comprehend the arguments in favor of it, 
he never for a moment yielded to the current popular opinion, 



1 88 READING AND ORATORY. 

when it differed from his own. He expected to restrain it by 
his logic, and ultimately reverse it by the benefits his measures 
would confer. 

The genius of Mr. Calhoun was essentially active, and ever 
looking forward to the improvement of mankind. He sought, 
therefore, earnestly, to discover the principles and theory of 
Movement that might be onward and unfailing — yet regular 
and safe. In accomplishing this task, he sounded anew the 
depths of human nature; he reviewed the whole science of • 
politics; he analyzed the Constitution word by word — its letter 
and its spirit; and he studied thoroughly the workings of our 
Government. The result was that he lifted himself above all 
parties, and became a philosophical, progressive Statesman — the 
only true and real statesman. And it was in the wide and ex- 
haustless field now opened to him, that he gathered those im- 
mortal laurels, whose verdure shall delight, whose blossoms 
shall refresh, whose fruit shall be the food of the latest poster- 
ity. In short, he so thoroughly elucidated all the checks and 
balances of free Constitutions — simple and confederated — that 
henceforth, in the long tide of time, no Republic will be erected 
or reformed on a durable foundation, without a constant re- 
currence to the theories he has discussed and the measures he 
has proposed, and a profound observance of the precepts he 
has taught. james h. hammond. 

James Hamilton Hammond, an American statesman, born at Newberry, S. C, Novem- 
ber IS. 1807 ,■ died at Beach Island, S.C, November 13, 1864. His father, Elisha Hammond, 
a native of Massachusetts, became in 1802 professor of languages in South Caro- 
lina College, and afterward President. The son graduated there m 1825, was admitted to 
the bar, and in 1830 became editor of the Soidhcrn Times, at Columbia. He married a 
lady of large fortune, and devoted himself to agriculture and politics. He wrote much, 
made many public addresses in behalf of nullification, and took an active part in or- 
ganizing the military force which South Carolina raised in 1833 to resist the Federal 
Government. In 1835-37 he was a member of Congress, and m 1842 Governor of South 
Carolina. In 1844 he published a letter to the Free Church of Glasgow, Scotland, on 
slavery in the United States, and in 1845 two others in reply to an anti-slavery circular 
by Thomas Clarkson; these with other essays on the same subject were collected in a 
volume. The Pro-Slavery Argument, Charleston : 1858. Besides essays on agriculture, 
manufactures, railroads, and finance, he published an elaborate review of the life, 
character, and public services of John C. Calhoun. In November, 1857, he was elected 
to the Senate of the United States to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of A. P. 
Butler. In March, 1858, he made a speech in the Senate in which he called the laboring 
classes " mudsills," a phrase which provoked much comment. In the same speech he 



SOLILOQUY OF COLUMBUS. 189 

said, " Cotton is King, and no power upon earth dares make war upon it." On the se- 
cession of South Carolina in December, i860, he withdrew from the Senate, but during 
the civil war, ill health compelled him to remain quietly at home. — The American 
Cyclopmdia. 



THE TEST OF A TRUE GENTLEMAN. 

THE forebearing use of power does not only forma touch- 
stone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys cer- 
tain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. 

The power which the strong have over the weak, the magis- 
trate over the citizen, the employer over the employed, the 
educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confid- 
ing, even the clever over the silly — the forbearing or inoffensive 
use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it 
when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain 
light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily re- 
mind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against 
him. He can not only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for 
that nobleness of self and mildness of character Avhich impart 
sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man 
of honor feels humbled himself tuhen he cannot help humbling 
others. Robert e. lee. 



SOLILOQUY OF COLUMBUS. 

[From Psalm of the West.] 

ERE we Gomera cleared, a coward cried, 
Turn., turn: here be three caravels ahead, 
From Portugal, to take us: ive are dead! — 
Hold Westward, pilot, calmly I replied. 
So when the last land down the horizon died, 

Go back, go back! they prayed: our hearts are lead.- 
Friends, we are bou?td into the West, I said. 
Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side. 



1 90 READING AND ORATORY. 

See (so they wept) God's warning! Admiral, turn! — 
Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. 

Then down the night we saw the meteor burn. 
So do the very Heavens in fire protest: 

Good Admiral, put about! O Spain, dear Spain! — 

Hold straight into the West, I said again. 

Next drive we o'er the sUmy-weeded sea. 

Lo! herebeneath (another coward cried) 

Thz cursed land of sunk Atlatttis lies: 
This slime will suck us down — titrn while thou' rt f reel- 
But no! I said, Freedom bears West for me! 

Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise, 

And day by day the keel to westward flies, 
My Good my people's 111 doth come to be: 

Ever the winds into the West do blow. 

Never a ship, once turned, might ho??ieward go; 
Meanwhile tve speed into the lonesome ?nain. 

For Chrisfs sake, parley. Admiral! Turn, before 
We sail outside all botmds of help from Spain! — 

Our help is in the West, I said once more. 

So when there came a mighty cry of Land! 
And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong 
Salve Regina! all the ropes along. 
But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band 
Of level clouds had aped a silver strand; 

So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song, 
And all the people cried, A hellish throng 
To tempt us onward, by the devil planned. 
Yea, all froTn hell — keeji heron, fresh green weeds, 
Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds. 
Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die 
Ln clouds of nothing round the ef?ipty sky. 
Tired Admiral, get thee from this hell and rest! — 
Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. 



SINKING OF THE MONITOR MILWAUKEE. I9I 

I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night, 

From its big circling ever absently 

Returns, thou large low Star, to fix on thee. 
Maria! Star? No star: a Light, a Light! 
Wouldst leap ashore. Heart ? Yonder burns — a Light. 

Pedro Gutierrez, wake! come up to me. 

I prithee stand and gaze about the sea: 
What seest? Admiral, like as land — a Light! 
Well! Sanchez of Segovia, come and try: 
What seest? Admiral, fwi/g/it but sea and sky! 

Well! But /saw It. Wait! the Pinta's gun! 

Why, look, tis dawn, the land is clear; 'tis done! 
Two dawns do break at once from Time's full hand — 
God's, East — mine. West: good friends, behold my Land! 

SIDNEY LANIER. 



SINKING OF THE MONITOR MILWAUKEE BY 
A TORPEDO. 

PERHAPS the most singular and venturesome exploit ever 
performed in submarine diving was that of searching the 
sunken monitor Milwaukee during the bay-fight in Mobile har- 
bor. This sea-going fortress was a hugedouble-turretted moni- 
tor, with a ponderous, crushing projectile force in her. Her 
battery of four fifteen-inch guns, and the tough, insensible 
solidity of her huge wrought-iron turrets and heavy plated hulk, 
burdened the sleepy waters of the bay. Upon a time she 
braced her iron jacket about her, girded her huge sides with 
fifteen-inch pistolry, and went rolling her clumsy volume down 
the bay to mash Fort Taylor to rubbish. The sea staggered 
under her ponderous gliding and groaned about her massive 
bulk as she wended her awkward course toward the bay-shore 
over against the fort. She sighted her blunderbusses, and roll- 
ing, grunting, wheezing in her revolving towers like a Falstaff 
ill at ease, spat her gobbets of flame and death. The poor little 
water-spaniel fort ran down to the shore and barked at her of 



192 READING AND ORATORY. 

course. Cui bono or t7ialol Why, like Job's mates, fill its poor 
belly with the east wind, or try to draw out leviathan with a 
hook, or his tongue with a cord thou lettest down? Yet who 
reads of the fight between invulnerable Achilles and heroic 
Hector, and admires Achilles? The admiral of the American 
fleet, sick of the premature pother, signaled the lazy solidity to 
return. The loathly monster, slowly, like a bull-dog wrenched 
from his victim, rolled, snarling, lazily, leisurely down the bay, 
not obeying and yet not disobeying the signal. 

All along the sunny coast, like flowers springing up in a bat- 
tle-field, were rows of little white cottages, tenanted by women 
and children — love, life, and peace in the midst of ruin and 
sudden death. At the offending spectacle of homely peace 
among its enemies, the englutted monster eased its huge wrath. 
Tumbling and bursting among the poor little pasteboard shells 
of cottages, where children played, and women gossiped of the 
war, and prayed for its end, no matter how, fell the huge globes 
and cones of murder. Shrieks and cries, slain babes and 
wounded women on shore; surly, half-mutinous officers and 
crew on that iron hulk, shocked at the fell work they were set 
to do; and the glimmer and wash of the bay-water below — 
that sweet, tranquil, half- transparent liquid, with idle weeds and 
chips upon it, empty crates and boxes of dead merchandise, 
sacked of their life and substance by the war, as one might 
swallow an oyster; the soft veils of shadowy ships and the dis- 
tant city spires; umbrageous fires and slips of shining sand — all 
mirrored in the soft and quiet sea, while this devilish pother 
went on. 

There is a buoy adrift! No, it is a sodden cask, perhaps of 
spoiling meat, while the people in the town yonder are starving; 
and still the huge iron, gluttonous monster bursts its foam of 
blood and death, while the surly crew curse and think of moth- 
ers and babes at home. Better to look at the bay, the idle, 
pleasing summer water, with chips and corks and weeds upon 
it; better to look at the bubbling cask yonder — much better, 
Captain, if you only knew it! But the reluctant, heavy iron 
turret groans and wheezes on its pivotal round, and it will be a 



THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. I93 

minute "or half a minute before the throated hell speaks again. 
But it ivill speak; machinery is fatally accurate to time and 
place. Can nothing stay it, or stop the tumbling of those 
bursting iron spheres among yon pretty print-like homes? No: 
look at the buoy, wish-wash, rolling lazily, bobbing in the vvater, 
a lazy, idle cask, with nothing in the world to do on this day of 
busy mischief. What hands coopered it in the new West? what 
farmer filled it? There is the grunting of swine, lowing of cattle 
in the look of the staves. 

But the turret groans and wheezes and goes around, whether 
you look at it or not. What cottage this time? The soft lap, 
lap of the water goes on, and the tedious cask gets nearer: it 
will slide by the counter. You have a curious interest in that. 
No: it grates under the bow; it — 

Thunder, and wreck, and ruin! Has the bay burst open and 
swallowed us? The huge, invulnerable iron monster — not in- 
vulnerable after all — has met its master in the idle cask. It is 
blind, imprisoned Samson pulling down the pillars of the tem- 
ple. The tough iron plates at the bow are rent, and torn, and 
twisted like wet paper. A terrible hole is gashed in the hull. 
The monster wobbles, rolls, gasps, and drinks huge gulps of 
water like a Avounded man — desperately wounded, and dying in 
his thirsty veins and arteries. The swallowed torrent rushes 
aft, hissing and quenching the fires; beats against the stern, 
and comes forward with the rush of that repulse to meet the 
incoming wave. Into the boats, the water! — anywhere but here. 
She reels again and groans; and then, as a desperate hero dies, 
she slopes her huge warlike beak at the hostile water, and rushes 
to her own ruin with a surge and convulsion. The a ictorious 
sea sweeps over it and hides it, laughing at her work. She will 
keep it safely. will wa llace harney. 



THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

THE Sense of the Beautiful once actively developed in 
man, he loses nothing in nature which his senses should 
absorb within themselves as so much aliment. He recognizes, 



194 READING AND ORATORY. 

with each day's consciousness, new and increasing powers of 
perception in himself. The sounds issuing from the great for- 
ests, or the mountain gorges, are no longer mere gusts and mur- 
murs of a senseless force in Nature, but they resolve themselves 
into a song of the winds, telling the story of their capricious 
wanderings over land and sea. The solitude is no longer com- 
panionless. There are those who walk beside him, who speak 
with numerous voices to his newly-developed faculties. He 
finds the Beautiful in all her retreats; his ear opens with a new 
capacity for music, which enables him to hear the Spring-time 
chant from earth, in the murmur of the infinite tribes that toil 
below for extrication from the seed and the bondage of the 
soil. 

All the senses grow in turn, and triumph in the fresh delight 
of that wondrous fountain, newly welling in the soul, now first 
made capable to feel all the glory that harbors in the grass, all 
the splendor that blushes and bourgeons in the flower. We 
become sensible of the majesty, the dignity, and the frankness, 
as well as the magnificent beauty in the rose, and it glows be- 
fore us with the charm of an exquisite and perfect woman. We 
linger with delight to survey the fearless, yet pleading innocence 
which looks to us from the virgin lily. The delicate appeal 
which is made to us in the equal beauty and odor of the pink 
moves us to place it in our bosom; and, briefly, we discover, 
with our own developed sense of the beautiful, that, in the cul- 
tivation of the flower of the valley, we have cultivated a very 
rose of Sharon, blossoming for immortality in each loving heart 
and soul. 

It is not a mere shrub or flower which we nurture with so 
much care, it is a sentiment, a song, a virtue. It is our own 
best nature which we thrs train to beauty, through every 
agency of sense, sentiment, and sensibility, to the full develop- 
ment of that greatest of all human virtues — a perfect manhood. 
It is not merely eye, and ear, and nose which are the satisfied 
feeders among these flowers. But here thought broods with 
new discoveries, which bring new hopes; fancies spring with 
fresh desires that take all their aspects from innocence; love 



i 



WONDERS WORKED BY THE SUN'S RAYS. I95 

glows with generous and sweet emotions, and the man becomes 
complete in the exercise of all his fulness of quality, in beauty, 
majesty, and strength. Studying well the art of the cultivator, 
he has read from those books of Nature which practise no 
frauds upon the intellect; assail no moral in his soul; teach no 
errors; beguile to no crimes or vices; and sensibilities, thus 
tutored, minister lovingly to all his moods, whether in joy or 
sorrow, whether it be care or triumph, pain or pleasure, that is 
looking, meanwhile, over his shoulder. 

\V. GILMORE SIMMS. 



THE WONDERS WORKED BY THE SUN'S RAYS. 

THE great sun above us pours down his golden floods over 
all, as quietly and gently as a sleeping infant breathes. And 
yet, by their pervasive force it is that all the mighty changes of 
the earth are wrought, and all its wondrous harmonies produced. 
The winds are raised, and, in their rapid flight, obey this sub- 
tile force; and the deep seas, shaken by the feet of the mighty 
winds, do the bidding of the sun, and, with all their ever-rolling 
waves, resound his praise. By his touch the electric equi- 
librium of the air is disturbed, and the lightnings proclaim his 
power; and the magnificent sparks thus kindled, ploughing vast 
regions of the atmosphere, engender material to enrich the 
earth, and feed the green herb. 

The sun's rays are, indeed, his ministering angels, sent forth 
to minister to all things on earth. By their mysterious ministry 
it is that the waters of the great deep are spread in vapor 
through the air: that the secret fountains of the dews and rains 
are replenished: and that the dryland is gladdened with springs 
and rivers. As from the waters of the ocean they fertilize the 
dry land and cool the hot air, so, from elements of the crude 
and formless air itself, they construct the living plant. They 
build the giant oak over our heads, and weave the sweet violet 
at our.feet. The forests of a thousand years, no less than the 
flowers of a day, are the work of their delicate fingers. The 



196 READING AND ORATORY. 

endless variety of rich grains also, and the delicious fruits of 
every clime, are but so many transmutations of the invisible air, 
wrought and matured by these ever-busy alchemists of the sun, 
by these shining ministers of material good, who, under God, 
fill the earth with food and gladness. The fabled wonders of 
Aladdin's lamp are, indeed, as nothing, when compared with the 
real wonders of the great lamp of nature — the all-beholding 
sun. 

Nor is the solid globe itself exempt from the transforming 
power of the sun's rays. All the stupendous coal strata of the 
globe — all those inexhaustible sources of power and wealth and 
comfort, laid up for human use in the bosom of the earth — are 
but so many entombed vegetable kingdoms of the past, all of 
which were reared- and ruled by the mighty sun. Again, the 
slow transformations of earth's solid crust, in which its great 
geological changes consist, are mainly due to the abrasion of 
winds and rains, to the alternations of heat and frost, and to the 
everlasting lashing of the sea-waves — all of which are produced 
and set in motion by the sun. 

In like manner, the great oceanic currents, by which the mat- 
ter thus abraded is transferred from place to place, are owing 
to the sun. And when we consider the immense masses of mat- 
ter which, through the long lapse of ages, are thus transferred, 
we can well understand the declaration of scientific men, that 
it has more than once effected an entire change in the surface 
of the globe. New channels and beds have been scooped out 
for old ocean, and new continents have been formed. More 
than once, in the history of our globe, have continents changed 
places with seas, and seas with continents; so that a new dis- 
tribution of land and water, mountain and valley, has super- 
seded the old. The ultimate cause of this has been the sun. 

Nor is this all. For, by adding to the thickness of certain 
portions of the earth's crust, and by thinning out certain other 
portions, the rays of the sun have bound down the elastic 
force of the subterranean fires in some places, and prepared 
the way for their upheaval in others, either in the form of 
-mountain ranges, or in the outburst of active volcanoes; thus 



THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD R. R. BILL. 197 

bringing even these stupendous phenomena under the same 
great law of solar influence. The Alps and the Apennines 
were determined by the sun. Nay, when the primeval waters 
first rolled away, and the dry land rose to view, it was the sun 
which had appointed the place of its emergence, and the form 
with which it should appear. 

Thus, by the silent, all-pervading, and eternal action of the 
sun, are the valleys exalted and the very hills brought low; the 
foundations of continents are laid, their outlines and features 
determined, and their surfaces adorned with ten thousand times 
ten thousand forms of animal and vegetable life. 

A. T. BLEDSOE. 

Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL. D., was born in Kentucky in 1808, and died at Alexan- 
dria, Va., December 8, 1877. He graduated at the U. S. Military Academy at West 
Point in 1830, served two years in the army, and then resigned; was Prof. Mathematics 
in Kenyon College (1833-34), and in Miami University (1835-36); practised law in Spring- 
field, 111., (1840-48); Prof. Mathematics and Astronomy in University of Mississippi 
(1848-53); Prof. Mathematics University of Virginia (1853-61). During the civil war he 
was for a time Assistant Secretary of War of the Confederate States, and was sent on a 
special mission to Europe by his Government. At the close of the war he removed to 
Baltimore, editing the Southern Kevieiv until his death. Dr. Bledsoe's published works 
are: An Examination of Edwards on the IVill; A Theodicy^ or Vindication of the 
Divine Glory as Manifested in the Constitution and Goz'ernvtent of the Moral World; 
An Essay on Liberty and Slaziery; The Philosophy of Mathematics: Is Davis a 
Traitor? or Was Secession a Constitutional Right? His essays and review articles 
would fill many volumes. He left several important manuscript treatises on the higher 
mathematics, and, uncompleted, his Christian Cosmos^ and IVar bet^vccn the States. 
He was an intellectual giant, and America has produced no thinker of greater versatility 
and power. As metaphysician, theologian, constitutionalist, mathematician, and reviewer, 
he was equally distinguished, while there was no field of human knowledge which he 
seemed to have left unexplored. 



ON THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAILROAD 

BILL. 

SIR, I have been satisfied for years that if there was any 
portion of the inhabited globe absolutely in a suffering con- 
dition for want of a railroad, it was these teeming pine barrens 
of the St. Croix. At what particular point on that noble stream 
such a road should be commenced, I knew was immaterial; and 
so it seems to have been considered by the draughtsman of this 



198 READING AND ORATORY. 

bill. It might be up at the spring, or down at the foot-log, or 
the water-gate, or the fish-dam, or anywhere along the bank, — 
no matter where. But in what direction should it run, and 
where it should terminate, were always to my mind questions 
of the most painful perplexity. I could conceive of no place 
on "God's green earth" in such straitened circumstances for 
railroad facilities as to be likely to desire or willing to accept 
such a connection. I knew that neither Bayfield nor Superior 
City would have it, for they both indignantly spurned the mu- 
nificence of the Government when coupled with- such igno- 
minious conditions, and let this very same land-grant die on 
their hands years and years ago rather than submit to the 
degradation of a direct communication by railroad with the 
piny woods of the St. Croix; and I knew that what the enter- 
prising inhabitants of those giant young cities would refuse to 
take would have few charms for others, whatever their neces- 
sities or cupidity might be. 

Hence, as I have said, sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine 
where the terminus of this great and indispensable road should 
be, until I accidentally overheard some gentlemen the other day 
mention the name of "Duluth." Duluth! The word fell upon 
my ear with a peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle 
murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, 
or the soft, sweet accents of an angel's whisper in bright, joy- 
ous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! 'Twas the name 
for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth 
for the waterbrooks. But where was Duluth? Never, in .all my 
limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the 
celestial word in print. And I felt a profounder humiliation 
in my ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before 
ravished my delighted ear. I was certain the draughtsman of 
this bill had never heard of it, or it would have been desig- 
nated as one of the termini of this road. I asked my friends 
about it, but they knew nothing of it. I rushed to the Library, 
and examined all the maps I could find. I discovered in one 
of them a delicate hair-like line, diverging from the Missis- 
sippi near a place marked Prescott, which I supposed was in- 



THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD R. R. BILL. 1 99 

tended to represent the river St. Croix, but I could nowhere 
find Duluth. 

Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and that 
its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the pres- 
ent century, if not of all modern times. I knew it was bound 
to exist, in the very nature of things; that the symmetry and per- 
fection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it; 
that the elements of material nature would long since have re- 
solved themselves back into original chaos, if there had been 
such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from leaving 
out Duluth. In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the convic- 
tion that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but that wherever 
it was, it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that 
the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of 
the ancient world was in their having passed away without a 
knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled 
Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired 
poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the 
golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym 
for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. 

I was certain that Herodotus had died a miserable death, be- 
cause in all his travels, and with all his geographical research, he 
had never heard of Duluth. I knew that if the immortal spirit 
of Homer could look down from another heaven than that 
created by his own celestial genius upon the long lines of pil- 
grims from every nation of the earth to the gushing fountain of 
poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand, if he could be 
permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious 
productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired 
strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that instead of 
lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon the fall of 
Ilium, it had not been his more blessed lot to crystallize in 
deathless song the rising glories of Duluth. 

Yet, sir, had it not been for this map, kindly furnished me 
by the Legislature of Minnesota, I might have gone down to 
my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair, because 
I could nowhere find Duluth. Had such been my melancholy 



20C; READING AND ORATORY. 

fate, I have no doubt that with the last feeble pulsation of my 
breaking heart, with the last faint exhalation of my fleeting 
breath, I should have whispered, '''' W-h-e-r-e is D-u-l-ti-t-h?" 

J. PROCTOR KNOTT. 



ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD RAILROAD BILL. 

[continued.] 

HERE, sir, recurring to this map which I hold in my hand, I 
find in the immediate vicinity of the Piegans " vast 
herds of buffalo" and " immense fields of rich wheat lands." 
The idea of there being these immense wheat-fields in the very 
heart of a wilderness, hundreds and hundreds of miles beyond 
the utmost verge of civilization, may appear to some gentlemen 
as rather incongruous, — as rather too great a strain on the 
blankets of veracity. But to my mind there is no difficulty in 
the matter whatever. The phenomenon is very easily accounted 
for. It is evident, sir, that the Piegans sowed that wheat there, 
and ploughed it in with buffalo bulls. Now, sir, this fortunate 
combination of buffaloes and Piegans, considering their relative 
positions to each other and to Duluth, as they are arranged on 
this map, satisfies me that Duluth is destined to be the beef 
market of the world. 

Here, you will observe, are the buffaloes, directly between 
the Piegans and Duluth; and here, right on the road to Duluth, 
are the Creeks. Now, sir, when the buifaloes are sufficiently 
fat from grazing on those immense wheat-fields, you see it will 
be the easiest thing in the world for the Piegans to drive them 
on down, stay all night with their friends, the Creeks, and go 
into Duluth in the morning. I think I see them now, sir, a 
vast herd of buffaloes, with their heads down, their eyes glar- 
ing, their nostrils dilated, their tongues out, and their tails 
curled over their backs, tearing along toward Duluth, with 
about a thousand Piegans on their grass-bellied ponies, yelling 
at their heels! On they come! And as they sweep past the 
Creeks, they join in the chase, and away they all go, yelling, 



THE ST. CROIX AND BAYFIELD R. R. BILL. 201 

bellowing, ripping, and tearing along, amid clouds of dust, 
until the last buffalo is safely penned in the stock-yards of 
Duluth! 

Sir, I might stand here for hours and hours, and expatiate 
with rapture upon the gorgeous prospects of Duluth, as de- 
picted upon this map. But human life is too short, and the 
time of this House far too valuable, to allow me to linger longer 
upon the delightful theme. I think every gentleman on this 
floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth is destined to be- 
come the commercial metropolis of the universe, and that this 
road should be built at once. I am fully persuaded that no 
patriotic Representative of the American people, who has a 
proper appreciation of the associated glories of Duluth and the 
St. Croix, will hesitate a moment to say that every able-bodied 
female in the land, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, 
who is in favor of " women's rights" should be drafted and set 
to work upon this great road without delay. 

Nevertheless, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to 
say that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in 
this bill. Ah! sir, you can have no conception of the poignancy 
of my anguish that I am deprived of that blessed privilege! 
There are two insuperable obstacles in the way. In the first 
place, my constituents, for whom I am acting here, have no 
more interest in this road than they have in the great question 
of culinary taste now, perhaps, agitating the public mind of 
Dominica, as to whether the illustrious commissioners, who re- 
cently left this capital for that free and enlightened republic, 
would be better fricasseed, boiled, or roasted; and, in the sec- 
ond place these lands, which I am asked to give away, alas, 
are not mine to bestow! My relation to them is simply that of 
trustee to an express trust. And shall I ever betray that trust? 
Never, sir! Rather perish Duluth! Perish the paragon of 
cities! Rather let the freezing cyclones of the bleak North- 
west bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of the raging 
St. Croix! 

J. PROCTOR KNOTT. 



202 READING AND ORATORY. 



HYMN OF THE ALAMO. 

RISE! man the wall — our clarion's blast 
Now sounds its final reveille, — 
This dawning morn must be the last 

Our fated band shall ever see. 
To life, but not to hope, farewell! 

Yon trumpet's clang and cannon's peal, 
And storming shout and clash of steel. 
Is ours, but not our country's knell. 
Welcome the Spartan's death, — 

'Tis no despairing strife; — 
We fall — we die — but our expiring breath 
Is Freedom's breath of life! 

"Here, on this new Thermopylae, 

Our monument shall tower on high. 
And, Alamo! hereafter be 

On bloodier fields the battle-cry." 
Thus Travis from the rampart cried; 
And when his warriors saw the foe 
Like whelming billows move below, 
At once each dauntless heart replied: 
"Welcome the Spartan's death, — 

'Tis no despairing strife; 
We fall — we die — but our expiring breath 
Is Freedom's breath of life!" 

They come — like autumn's leaves they fall, 
Yet hordes on hordes they onward rush; 

With gory tramp they mount the wall. 
Till numbers the defenders crush — 

Till falls their flag, when none remain! 
Well may the ruffians quake to tell 
How Travis and his hundred fell 



i 



THE OLD DOMINION. 203 

Amid a thousand foemen slain! 
They died the Spartan's death, 

But not in hopeless strife: 
Like brothers died — and their expiring breath 

Was Freedom's breath of life. 

R. M. POTTER. 



THE OLD DOMINION. 

THE mother of the Gracchi has been embalmed in Ro. 
man history, and inspiration has immortalized the grand- 
mother and mother of Timothy. But Virginia has given birth 
to an army of nobler freemen than the Gracchi, and to 
hundreds of soldiers of the Cross as pure as Timothy. All 
Rome cannot match her Washington; all the world cannot 
surpass her Lee; and yet they were but types — elder brothers 
of her sons, who at her breast imbibed truth and courage, from 
her heart drew the blood of martyrs and heroes, and in 
her schools learnt the lessons of a simple faith and an ex- 
alted patriotism. Immortal mother of mrtrons purer than 
Lucretia; of daughters more devoted than Iphigenia; daughter 
of liberty, for whose defence her heart was always interposed, 
I bow my head in grateful thanksgiving for all thou hast done 
for mankind; and then with unutterable pride I lift my face 
and challenge all mankind to match thee! Who hath served 
God better; who loved truth more; who fought for liberty as 
valiantly; who given so much to country; who borne sorrow 
with such majestic patience as this matchless mother of heroes! 
God bless thee, Virginia! wherever God has a follower, or truth 
a worshipper, or liberty a defender, there thou wilt have a lover, 
and the story of thy life will nerve the arm and inspire the 
heart of all who strike for right, 

W. C. P. BRECKINRIDGE. 



204 READING AND ORATORY. 



TEXAS CENTENNIAL ORATION. 

SIRS, you have been told that we are demons in hate, and 
gloat at the thought of war and blood. Men of New 
England — men of the great North! will you believe me when, 
for two millions of people whom I represent, and for the whole 
South as well, I denounce the utterance as an inhuman slander, 
an unpardonable falsehood, against a brave, and, God knows, a 
suffering people? 

Want war! want bloodshed! — Sirs, we are poor, broken in 
fortune, and sick at heart. Had you stood by the ruined 
hearthstones, by the wrecks of fortune, which are scattered all 
along the shore; had you seen, as I have seen, the wolf howl- 
ing at the door of many a once happy home — widowhood and 
orphanage starving, and weeping over never-returning sires and 
sons, who fell with your honored dead at Gettysburg and Ma- 
nassas; could you hear, as I have heard, the throbbing of the 
great universal Southern heart — throbbing for peace, and long- 
ing for the old and faithful love between the States; could you 
have seen, and felt, and heard all these things, my countrymen, 
you would take me by the hand, and swear that the arm thus 
uplifted against us should wither at the socket, and the tongue 
which utters the great libel on our name become palsied at 
its root forever! 

With each returning Spring let us scatter flowers over the 
resting-place alike of Federal and Confederate dead; as we en- 
shrine with immortelles of memory your Sumner, and Thomas, 
and McPherson, with our Sidney Johnston, Stonewall Jack- 
son, and the great Lee, forever. Let universal amnesty crown 
the closing of the century. Our brothers died not in vain in 
the last great struggle. Standing, long ago, in the capitol of 
Texas, with my oath to support the Constitution fresh upon my 
lips, I uttered these words, and from a full heart I repeat them 
here to-day: "They died not in vain." Whether wearing the 
gray or the blue, their lives were offered freely, like libations of 
water, for right — as each dying soldier deemed — and for native 



•TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. 205 

land. In their graves, made immortal by the same ancestral 
heroism of race and blood, let us bury the feuds of that stormy 
hour of our history. 

In this generous and knightly spirit, Texas to-day sends fra- 
ternal greeting to all the States of the Union. 

R. B. HUBBARD. 

Richard B. Hubbard is a Georgian, but emigrated to Texas at an early day. His 
education was received at Yale College and the University of Virginia,and his profession 
has been the law, in which he has been eminently successful. He has served in both 
Houses of the Legislature; was Colonel in the Confederate army; elected Lieutenant- 
Governor of Texas, and on Governor Coke's resignation became Governor. He was 
the orator for Texas at the Centennial. 



TO THE MOCKING-BIRD. 

THOU glorious mocker of the world! I hear 
Thy many voices ringing through the glooms 
Of these green solitudes; and all the clear, 
Bright joyance of their song enthralls the ear, 

And floods the heart. Over the sphered tombs 
Of vanished nations rolls thy music-tide: 

No light from History's starlit page illumes 
The memory of these nations: they have died: 

None care for them but thou; and thou mayst sing 

O'er me, perhaps, as now thy clear notes ring 
Over their bones by whom thou once wast deified. 

Glad scorner of all cities! Thou dost leave 

The world's mad turmoil and incessant din. 
Where none in others' honesty believe. 
Where the old sigh, the young turn gray and grieve, 

Where misery gnaws the maiden's heart within; 
Thou fleest far into the dark green woods, 

Where, with thy flood of music, thou canst win 
Their heart to harmony, and where intrudes 

No discord on thy melodies. Oh, where, 

Among the sweet musicians of the air. 
Is one so dear as thou to these old solitudes? 



206 READING AND ORATORY. 

Ha! what a burst was that! The ^olian strain 
Goes floating through the tangled passages 

Of the still woods; and now it comes again, 

A multitudinous melody, like a rain 
Of glassy music under echoing trees, 

Close by a ringing lake. It wraps the soul 
With a bright harmony of happiness, 

Even as a gem is wrapped, when round it roll 
Thin waves of crimson flame, till we become, 
With the excess of perfect pleasure, dumb, 

And pant like a swift runner clinging to the goal. 

I cannot love the man who doth not love, 
As men love light, the song of happy birds; 

For the first visions that my boy-heart wove, 

To fill its sleep with, were that I did rove 

Through the fresh woods, what time the snowy herds 

Of morning clouds shrunk from the advancing sun. 
Into the depths of Heaven's blue heart, as words 

From the Poet's lips float gently, one by one, 
And vanish in the human heart; and then 
I' revelled in such songs, and sorrowed when, 

With noon-heat overwrought, the music-gush was done. 

I would, sweet bird, that I might live with thee. 

Amid the eloquent grandeur of these shades, 
Alone with Nature! — but it may not be: 
I have to struggle with the stormy sea 

Of human life until existence fades 
Into death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar 

Through the thick woods and shadow-chequered glades. 
While pain and sorrow cast no dimness o'er 
" The brilliance of thy heart; but I must wear, 

As now, my garments of regret and care, 
As penitents of old their galling sackcloth wore. 

Yet, why complain? What though fond hopes deferred 
Have overshadowed Life's green paths with gloom? 



SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. 207 

Content's soft music is not all unheard: 
There is a voice sweeter than thine, sweet bird, 

To welcome me, within my humble home; 
There is an eye, v.dth love's devotion bright, 

The darkness of existence to illume. 
Then, why complain? When death shall cast his blight 

Over the spirit, my cold bones shall rest 

Beneath these trees; and from thy swelling breast 
Over them pour thy song, like a rich flood of light. 

ALBERT PIKE. 



SOUTHERN RECONSTRUCTION. 

IT was one of the wisest sayings of a very wise man, that 
"the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." This maxim of 
wisdom is peculiarly applicable to the present time. Ten 
States of this Union are to-night under revolutionary govern- 
ments, originated and imposed upon them by an external power, 
and supported only by the bayonet. These revolutionary gov- 
ernments displace, repress, and, for the time, suppress the reg- 
ular, republican, constitutional governments which have existed 
here all the while with an unbroken succession. These revolu- 
tionary governments are in the hands of carpet-baggers and 
scalawags, who treat the laws of their own origination with 
disgraceful contempt; and, under the forms of official authority, 
heap upon our people injuries and insults which never before 
were borne by men born and bred and educated in the princi- 
ples of Liberty. Shameless plunder, malignant slander, corrupt 
favoritism, impunity for crimes when committed by partisans of 
the Government, gigantic extension of the credit of the States 
to penniless adventurers who come among us under the false 
and fraudulent plea of "developing our resources," robbery of 
the very negroes who are sought to be used as the chief instru- 
ment of upholding this gigantic system of revolutionary fraud 
and force — these are the fruits of these revolutionary govern- 
ments. These are the products of reconstruction. This is the 



208 READING AND ORATORY. 

"Situation"! And yet there are those who say: " Let us accept 
the situation." 

In the last Presidential campaign we heard the potent words: 
"Let us have Peace!" They had their effect. They carried 
the Presidential election. Yet wise men then knew, as all men 
now know, that they were a delusion and a snare. — " Let us 
have Peace!" — It meant that freemen, with their necks under 
the heel of despotism, should remain submissive and quiet. 
Such a peace Turkey has! Such a peace Poland has! Such a 
peace, thank God, Ireland refuses to have! No people trained 
in the principles of liberty will ever accept of any peace that 
is not founded on liberty. Tyrants and despots may reconstruct, 
and r^-reconstruct, and r(?-/r-reconstruct ad infinitum; but they 
will never have peace from American-born freemen until they 
give them their rights! 

LINTON STEPHENS. 



THE BONNY BROWN HAND. 

OH, drearily, how drearily, the sombre eve comes down! 
And wearily, how wearily, the seaward breezes blow! 
But place your little hand in mine — so dainty, yet so brown! 
For household toil hath worn away its rosy-tinted snow; 
But I fold it, wife, the nearer. 
And I feel, my love, 'tis dearer. 
Than all dear things of earth, 
As I watch the pensive gloaming. 
And my wild thoughts cease from roaming. 
And birdlike furl their pinions close beside our peaceful hearth; 
Then rest your little hand in mine, while twilight shimmers 

down, — 
That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny 
brown, — 
The hand that holds an honest heart, and rules a happy hearth. 

Oh, merrily, how merrily, our children's voices rise! 
And cheerily, how cheerily their tiny footsteps fall! 



THE BONNY BROWN HAND. 209 

But, hand, you must not stir awhile, for there our nestling lies, 
Snug in the cradle at your side, the loveliest far of all; 
And she looks so arch and airy, 
So softly pure a fairy, — 

She scarce seems bound to earth; 
And her dimpled mouth keeps smiling 
As at some child-fay's beguiling, 
Who flies from Ariel realms to light her slumbers on the hearth. 
Ha, little hand, you yearn to move, and smooth the bright 

locks down! 
But, little hand, — but, trembling hand, — but, hand of bonny 
brown. 
Stay, stay with me! — she will not flee, our birdling on the hearth. 

Oh, flittingly, how flittingly, the parlor-shadows thrill. 

As wittingly, half wittingly, they seem to pulse and pass! 
And solemn sounds are on the wind that sweeps the haunted 
hill. 
And murmurs of a ghostly breath from out the graveyard 
grass. 

Let me feel your glowing fingers 
In a clasp that warms and lingers 

With the full, fond love of earth, 
Till the joy of love's completeness 
In this flush of fireside sweetness, 
Shall brim our hearts with spirit-wine, outpoured beside the 
hearth. 
So steal your little hand in mine, while twilight falters 

down, — 
That little hand, that fervent hand, that hand of bonny 
brown, — 
The hand which points the path to heaven, yet makes a heaven 
of earth. 

PAUL H. HAYNE. 



2IO READING AND ORATORY. 



THE PRESENT CRISIS AND ITS ISSUES. 

YOUNG gentlemen of the University, I have delivered the 
message with which I felt myself charged. I have not 
been able to address you with the fopperies of rhetoric. I have 
done you the higher honor of supposing you capable of sympa- 
thizing with the deep emotions of my own heart. 

When your note of invitation reached me some months ago, 
it touched me with the solemnity of a call from the grave. I 
felt, as I turned my steps hither, that I was making a pilgrimage 
to my country's shrine. I should be permitted to stand un- 
covered at the tomb of the immortal Chief, who sleeps in such 
grand repose beneath the academic shades where he found rest 
after heroic toils. Should I look upon it as the emblem of my 
country's death? or should I prophesy beside it the birth of a 
new career? Memories holy as death have been throwing their 
shadows upon my spirit; and I have spoken in the interest of 
country, of duty, and of truth. The dim forms of Washington 
and of Lee — twin names upon American History, as well as 
upon your own walls — appear before me, the Rhadamanthus 
and the Minos who shall pronounce judgment upon every sen- 
timent uttered here. If aught said by me should draw the 
frown of their disapproval, may the Angel of Pity drop a tear 
and blot it out forever! 

Standing upon the soil which gave birth to a Washington, a 
Madison, a Jefferson, a Henry, a Randolph, a Marshall, a Jack- 
son, and a Lee; and lifting the scroll which hangs around the 
ensign of my native State, the names of Pinckney, Laurens, 
Rutledge, Lowndes, McDuffie, Hayne, Calhoun — I summon 
their immortal shades around his tomb whom a nation has so 
lately mourned. In their dread presence I solemnly declare 
that the principles of our fathers are our principles to-day; and 
that the stones upon which the temple of American liberty was 
first built, are the only stones upon which it should ever be 
able to stand. And you, gentlemen, representing the young 
thought and hope which must shortly deal with these mighty 



SUSAN GARTHWAITES WEDDING DAY. 211 

issues, — I swear each of you by an oath more solemn than that 
of Hannibal, not that you will destroy Rome, but that you will 
save Carthage. I charge you, if this great Republic, like a gal- 
lant ship, must drive upon the breakers, that you will be upon 
the deck, and with suspended breath await the shock. Per- 
chance she will survive it, but if she sink beneath the destiny 
which has devoured other great kingdoms of the past, that you 
save from the melancholy wreck our Ancestral Faiths, and 
work out yet upon this continent the problem of a free, con- 
stitutional, and popular government. And may the God of 
destinies give you a good issue! 

B. M. PALMER. 



SUSAN GARTH WAITE'S WEDDING DAY. 

IT was in early Spring that the wedding took place. The 
wintry winds which whirled about the dead leaves, heaping 
them here, there leaving bare the ground, had been driven to 
their northern caves by the fair maid. Spring, who came upon 
the scene from more southern lands, heralded by warm rains 
and a more genial glow of the sun; bland zephyrs floating 
mingled with the sheen; and an emerald carpet spangled with 
modest star-flowers rose to her tread as she advanced. The 
gray and russet buds, fast swelling big, burdened with joyous 
load each slender spray, and here and there branches and trees 
were seen with yellow, silvery green, and crimson, dotting the 
wood. The beeches had begun to wave their banners, the red- 
buds clothed themselves in rose color, and the dogwood blos- 
soms, growing fast from green to white, gave notice to the 
rustic fishermen to prepare their tackle. The wild violets, blue 
and white, covered the mossy banks along the gurgling rills; 
pendent honeysuckles, gemmed with dew, fringed the bottoms; 
yellow jessamines, wild pea, spiderwort, and daisies covered the 
slopes, and bright verdure and many-colored flowers began to 
clothe the vales and crown each hill. 

And every nook in earth and air was filled with busy life. 



212 READING AND ORATORY. 

The hooping cranes circled high in noisy consultation, or, with 
necks and legs outstretched, took straight their northern 
flight. In the fields the pitiless ploughshare, upturning the 
mellow earth, wrenched to the light the nest of the timid field- 
mouse, and crows and prying blackbirds, heedless of the loud 
woa! and haw! of the ploughinen, scanned narrowly each 
furrow to seize the unearthed worm and sluggish snail; and the 
feathered songsters sent their notes from every hill and brake, 
as they searched about with tender care where each might 
build its nest. From some lowly bush the gentle thrush poured 
forth his song of love with bated voice; the gallant partridge, 
strutting on a stump or fence, gave out his loudest challenge; 
in the clumps of hazels and dwarfed oaks the gay redbird 
flaunted his bright plumage, and the noisy jay delighted his 
soul with discord; twittering swallows skimmed the verdant 
meads; noisy martens and trustful wrens peered business-like 
around the eaves of every house ; doves cooed softly, deep in 
the wood, and, from the topmost twig of some bush growing in 
the hedge, the mocking-bird repeated in ecstasy every note he 
bad ever heard or could invent. The white- winged gnats in 
the sun's first glances weaved their mazy dance in mystic circle. 
The ants, bound upon industry, commenced to excavate, and 
bore with unwearied patience their mighty loads of loam and 
grains of sand; here a scout sped his zigzag course, and there 
a long, dark, moving throng took its way in devious line to 
some new enterprise. 

Here on these weeds, with cunning SKill, last night 

A spider wove her web, which, misty, bright, 

Like frosted silver, sparkles now with dew. 

These gems will soon exhale and leave to view 

A trembling, frail, attenuated thread, 

To snap by wayward vrinds or passer's tread. 

So when youth's freshness gems man's hopes, they take 

A misty radiance, tremble thus, thus break. ^ 

^ JOHN S. HOLT. 

John Saunders Holt, the novelist, was bom in Mobile, December 5, 1826, received 
a finished education, and made law his profession. He served in the Mexican War and 
the War between the States, at the close of the latter taking up his residence at 
Natchez, Miss. His literary reputation rests chiefly \i\>oxi Abraham Pase^Esq.,z.TxA What 



PLANTATION LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 213 

I Know about Ben Ecciesy Philadelphia: Lippincott& Co., novels having for their object 
the portrayal of Southern manners and the elevation of the literature of fiction above the 
debasing and sensational character which it has so generally assumed. In purity of style, 
refined humor, originality, and power of characterization Mr. Holt is not surpassed by 
any modern American writer of fiction. He has now in manuscript a third novel, The 
Quines. Among his best magazine articles are his \.\iO%tx\^s^ Spider' i-\Veb Papers y'i.w^k 
Sotne 0/ our Local Great Men. 



PLANTATION LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 

AND yet the life, so imassailed by care, 
So blessed with moderate work, with ample fare, 
With all the good the starving pauper needs, 
The happier slave on each plantation leads. 
Safe from harassing doubts and annual fears, 
He dreads no famine in unfruitful years; 
If harvests fail from inauspicious skies. 
The master's providence his food supplies; 
No paupers perish here for want of bread, 
Or lingering live, by foreign bounty fed; 
No exiled trains of homeless peasants go. 
In distant climes, to tell their tale of woe: 
Far other fortune, free from care and strife, 
For work, or bread, attends the Negro's life. 
And Christian slaves may challenge as their own 
The blessings claimed in fabled States alone — 
The cabin home, not comfortless, though rude, 
Light daily labor, and abundant food, 
The sturdy health that temperate habits yield, 
The cheerful song that rings in every field. 
The long, loud laugh, that freemen seldom share, 
Heaven's boon to bosoms unapproached by care, 
And boisterous jest and humor unrefined, 
That leave, though rough, no painful sting behind; 
While, nestling near, to bless their humble lot, 
Warm social joys surround the Negro's cot: 
The evening dance its merriment imparts. 



214 READING AND ORATORY. 

Love, with his rapture, fills their youthful hearts 
And placid age, the task of labor done, 
Enjoys the summer shade, the winter sun. 
And, as through life no pauper want he knows, 
Laments no poor-house penance at its close. 

Safe, in Ambition's trumpet-call to strife, 
No conscript fears harass his quiet Hfe, 
While the crushed peasant bleeds — a worthless thing, 
The broken toy of emperor or king. 
Calm in his peaceful home, the slave prepares 
His garden-spot, and plies his rustic cares; 
The comb and honey that his bees afford, 
The eggs in ample gourd compactly stored, 
The pig, the poultry, with a chapman's art. 
He sells or barters at the village mart. 
Or, at the master's mansion, never fails 
An ampler price to find and readier sales. 

There, when December's welcome frosts recall 
The friends and inmates of the crowded hall, 
To each glad nursling of the master's race 
He brings his present, with a cheerful face 
And offered hand; — of warm, unfeigning heart, 
In all his master's joys he claims a part, 
And, true as clansman to the Highland chief. 
Mourns every loss, and grieves in all his grief. 
When Christmas, now, with its abundant cheer 
And thornless pleasure, speeds the parting year, 
He shares the common joy — the early morn 
Wakes hunter, clamorous hpund, and echoing horn, 
Quick steps are heard, the merry season named. 
The loiterers caught, the wonted forfeit claimed, 
In feasts maturing busy hands appear, 
And jest and laugh assail the ready ear; 
Whose voice, than his, more gayly greets the dawn, 
Whose foot so lightly treads the frosty lawn, 
Whose heart as merrily, where mirth prevails, 
On every side the joyous season hails? 



LET US CONQUER OUR PREJUDICES. 21$ 

Around the slaughtered ox, a Christmas prize, 
The slaves assembling stand with eager eyes, 
Rouse, with their dogs, the porker's piercing cry, 
Or drag its squealing tenant from the sty; 
With smile and bow receive their winter dues, 
The strong, warm clothing and substantial shoes, 
Blankets adorned with stripes of border red, 
And caps of wool that warm the woollier head; 
Then clear the barn, the ample area fill, 
In the gay jig display their vigorous skill; 
No dainty steps, no mincing measures here — 
Ellsler's trained graces — seem to float in air, 
But hearts of joy and nerves of living steel 
On floors that spring beneath the bounding reel; 
Proud on his chair, with magisterial glance 
And stamping foot, the fiddler rules the dance; 
Draws, if he nods, the still unwearied bow; 
And gives a joy no bearded bands bestow. 
The triple holiday, on angel wings, 
With every fleeting hour a pleasure brings; 
No ennui clouds, no coming cares annoy. 
Nor wants nor sorrows check the Negro's joy. 

WILLIAM J. GRAYSON. 

William J. Grayson, statesman and poet, was born in Beaufort, S. G., in 1788. He 
was a member of Congress from 1833 to 1837. The Hireling and the Slave and Chicora^ 
an Indian Tale, are considered Ms best poetical works. 



LET US CONQUER OUR PREJUDICES. 

MAN by nature is ever prone to scan closely the errors 
and defects of his fellow-man — ever ready to rail at the 
mote in his brother's eye, without considering the beam that is 
in his own. This should not be. We all have our motes or 
beams. We are all frail; perfection is the attribute of none. 
Prejudice or prejudgment should be indulged toward none. 



2l6 READING AND ORATORY. 

Prejudice? What wrongs, what injuries, what mischiefs, what 
lamentable consequences, have resulted at all times from nothing 
but this perversity of the intellect! Of all the obstacles to the 
advancement of truth and human progress, in every department 
— in science, in art, in government, and in religion — in all ages 
and climes, not one on the list is more formidable, more diffi- 
cult to overcome and subdue, than this horrible distortion of 
the moral as well as intellectual faculties. It is a host of evils 
within itself. I could enjoin no greater duty upon my country- 
men now, — North and South — than the exercise of that degree 
of forbearance which would enable them to conquer their pre- 
judices. One of the highest exhibitions of the moral sublime 
the world ever witnessed was that of Daniel Webster, when, in 
an open barouche in the streets of Boston, he proclaimed in 
substance, to a vast assembly of his constituents — unwilling 
hearers — that "they had conquered an uncongenial clime; they 
had conquered a sterile soil; they had conquered the winds and 
currents of the ocean; they had conquered most of the ele- 
ments of nature; but they must yet learn to conquer their pre- 
judices!" I know of no more fitting incident or scene in the 
life of that wonderful man, " Clams et vir fortissimus" for per- 
petuating the memory of the true greatness of his character, on 
canvas or in marble, than a representation of him as he then 
and there stood and spoke! It was an exhibition of moral gran- 
deur surpassing that of Aristides when he said, "Oh, 
Athenians, what Themistocles recommends would be greatly to 
your interest, but it would be unjust!" 

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



A GEORGIA VOLUNTEER. 

FAR up the lonely mountain side 
My wandering footsteps led; 
The moss lay thick beneath ray feet, 
The pine sighed overhead. 



A GEORGIA VOLUNTEER. 217 

The trace of a dismantled fort 

Lay in the forest nave, 
And in the shadow near my path 

I saw a soldier's grave. 

The bramble wrestled with the weed 

Upon the lowly mound, 
The simple headboard, rudely writ, 

Had rotted to the ground; 
I raised it with a reverent hand, 

From dust its words to clear. 
But time had blotted all but these^ 

"A Georgia Volunteer!" 

I saw the toad and scaly snake 

From tangled covert start, 
And hide themselves among the weeds 

Above the dead man's heart; 
But undisturbed, in sleep profound, 

Unheeding, there he lay; 
His coffin but the mountain soil. 

His shroud Confederate gray. 

I heard the Shenandoah roll 

Along the vale below, 
I saw the Alleghanies rise 

Towards the realms of snow. 
The "Valley Campaign" rose to mind — 

Its leader's name — and then 
I knew the sleeper had been one 

Of Stonewall Jackson's men. 

Yet whence he came, what lip shall say— 

Whose tongue will ever tell 
What desolated hearths and hearts 

Have been because he fell? 
What sad-eyed maiden braids her hair. 

Her hair which he held dear? 



2l8 READING AND ORATORY. 

One lock of which, perchance, lies with 
The Georgia Volunteer! 

What mother, with long watching eyes 

And white lips cold and dumb. 
Waits with appalling patience for 

Her darling boy to come? 
. Her boy! whose mountain grave swells up 

But one of many a scar, 
Cut on the face of our fair land. 

By gory-handed war. 

What fights he fought, what wounds he wore, 

Are all unknown to fame; 
Remember, on his lonely grave 

There is not e'en a name! 
That he fought well and bravely too, 

And held his cou"ntry dear, 
We know, else he had never been 

A Georgia Volunteer. 

He sleeps — what need to question now 

If he were wrong or right? 
He knows, ere this, whose cause was just 

In God the Father's sight. 
He wields no warlike weapons now, 

Returns no foeman's thrust — 
Who but a coward would revile 

An honest soldier's dust? 

Roll, Shenandoah, proudly roll, 

Adown thy rocky glen, 
Above thee lies the grave of one 

Of Stonewall Jackson's men. 
Beneath the cedar and the pine, 

In solitude austere, 
Unknown, unnamed, forgotten, lies 

A Georgia Volunteer. 

MRS. MARY ASHLEY TOWNSEND. 



READING AND ORATORY. 219 



TO TIME -THE OLD TRAVELLER. 

THEY slander thee, Old Traveller, 
Who say that thy delight 
Is to scatter ruin, far and wide, 
In thy wantonness of might: 
For not a leaf that falleth 

Before thy restless wings, 
But in thy flight thou changest it 
To a thousand brighter things. 

Thou passest o'er the battle-field, 

Where the dead lie stiff and stark, 
Where naught is heard save the vulture's scream, 

And the gaunt wolf's famished bark; 
But thou hast caused the grain to spring 

From the blood-enriched clay. 
And the waving corn-tops seem to dance 

To the rustic's merry lay. 

Thou hast strewed the lordly palace 

In ruins o'er the ground, 
And the dismal screech of the owl is heard 

Where the harp was wont to sound; 
But the self-same spot thou coverest 

With the dwellings of the poor, 
And a thousand happy hearts enjoy 

What one usurped before! 

'Tis true thy progress layeth 

Full many a loved one low, 
And for the brave and beautiful 

Thou hast caused our tears to flow; 
But always near the couch of death 

Nor thou, nor we can stay, 
And the breath of thy departing wings 

Dries all our tears away! 

WILLIAM H. TIMROD. 



220 READING AND ORATORY. 

William Henry Timrod, — the father of Henry Timrod, the poet, — was bom near 
Charleston, S. C, 1792, of German and Scotch parentage. When eleven years of age 
he ran away from school and apprenticed himself to a bookbinder, fancying that 
he could thus have access to innumerable books and stores of untold learning. Though 
soon undeceived, he did not return to his studies, but made himself a skilled mechanic, 
rather proud than otherwise of his useful and honest craft. So great was his thirst for 
knowledge that, as he had no time in the day and no light at night, he would climb on to 
the leads of the house when the moon was full, and there, by the lunar rays, read late 
into the night. The variety and extent of his information, his brilliant conversational 
powers, and the vigor and originality of thought he displayed attracted attention, and 
he was admitted, a welcome guest, to the highest intellectual and social circles of Charles- 
ton. That he possessed poetic talent of no mean order the few songs and sonnets he has 
left us clearly demonstrate. But what he regarded as the great literary labor of his 
life was a drama in five acts— the manuscript of which was lost. In the nullification 
controversy of 1832-33, he warmly espoused the cause of the Union, and wrote a stir- 
ring campaign song. Sons 0/ the Union, rise! He was elected Captain of the German 
Fusileers in 1835, and marched with them to garrison St. Augustine, in Florida, against the 
Seminoles. Exposure, hardship, and protracted labor brought on a disease of which, 
about two years after his return to Charleston, he died. His literaiy remains have 
never been collected and published. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 

DO not allow yourselves, my friends, to be misled by that 
false teaching, — false to your faith, to your country, and to 
your God, — which tells you, that, as your cause has failed, the 
principles which gave life and light and truth to that cause are 
forever obliterated. Any human undertaking, how just soever 
it may be, may fail, but settled principles cannot die. A great 
truth, like the Godhead whence it emanated, is eternal, and it 
must and will live till the last syllable of recorded time. The 
evil times upon which we have fallen are prolific of these teach- 
ings and dangerous heresies, and the press in some portions of 
this country offers a ready and willing channel for their dis- 
semination. You are told daily through this medium that our 
cause was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword, and that 
the verdict against which no appeal lies has been rendered in 
favor of our enemies. This doctrine is pernicious; and if we 
fall in with it we shall brand the heroic dead as well as the liv- 
ing as traitors, and cover all alike with deserved infamy. 

Why should we admit we are in the wrong? Shall we do so 
because our cause has gone down covered with the funeral pall 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 221 

that military disaster has thrown over it? When the torture 
wrung a recantation of the truth from GaHleo, did the earth 
cease to revolve on its axis? Did the waves that swept the ashes 
of Huss to the sea bury forever the truth he had proclaimed? 
When our Divine Master perished on the cross, did the doc- 
trines for which he died perish with him? We believe we have 
truth on our side; let us then assert and maintain our faith, 
and God will in His own good time make it manifest that we 
are right. If we were wrong in our struggle, then was the 
Declaration of Independence in '76 a terrible mistake, and the 
revolution to which it led a palpable crime; Washington should 
be stigmatized as a traitor, and Benedict Arnold canonized a 
patriot. If the principles which justified the first revolution 
were true in 1776. they were no less true in that of 1861. The 
success of the former can add not one jot or tittle to the abstract 
truth of the principles which gave it birth, nor can the failure 
of the latter destroy one particle of those ever-living principles. 
If Washington was a patriot, Lee cannot have been a rebel; if 
the grand enunciation of the truths of the Declaration of In- 
dependence made Jefferson immortal, the observance of them 
cannot make Davis a traitor. 

It has been urged by our enemies that the Constitution of 
the United States did not recognize explicitly the right of se- 
cession; but does that compact between sovereign States, which 
was entered into with such solemnity, forbid the exercise of 
this right in any clause, directly or by implication? Does it 
give to any of the parties to it the right or the semblance of a 
right to coerce the others? Does it permit any State or States 
to wage a war of extermination on the others? If it does not, 
or rather did not, allow any of these things, how comes it that 
we are gathered here to-day around the graves of Southern men 
who were slain only because they believed that the principles 
of 1776, which gave birth to our Republic, were equally true in 
1 86 1? It is because the people of the North have never 
studied and do not comprehend that Constitution about which 
they have raved so madly; because they have not consulted the 
fathers of the Republic; because their great teachers — blind 



222 READING AND ORATORY, 

leaders of the blind — have ignored and often falsified the 
records of the Convention of 1787, and have led their deluded 
followers into that downward and crooked path that leads to 
the destruction of the Republic, and to the subversion of con- 
stitutional liberty under republican institutions in the New 
World. 

WADE HAMPTON. 

Wade Hampton, soldier and statesman, was born at Columbia, S. C, in 1818; gradu- 
ated at Soath Carohna College, read law, and served in both branches of the State 
Legislature. Entering the Confederate service in command of the " Hampton Legion," 
a body of cavalry which he raised for the war, he displayed consummate military 
skill and genius, and became, by successive promotions, Lieutenant-General and 
Commander of all the Cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was afterwards 
sent to South Carolina, and in February, 1865, commanded the rear-guard of the 
army which evacuated Columbia— the burning of which city Gen. Sherman attempted 
in vain to fix upon him. In 1876 Gen. Hampton received the Democratic nomination 
for Governor of State of South Carolina. The contest was a close one, as between 
himself and Chamberlin, the opposing candidate. He was elected, and duly installed 
in the Gubernatorial chair. 



MOUNTAIN SCENERY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

AT every season of the year there is a charm about these 
splendid woodlands of the Appalachians. Sometimes in 
midwinter, a cloud, laden with the sharp, ice-cold moisture of 
a January storm, drags lazily against a sharp-pointed pinnacle, 
where it hovers as a pall. It can scarcely be said to rain; its 
moisture seems gently to dissolve itself upon the earth, and is 
immediately fixed by the cold. This gives rise to what is often 
termed a frozen cloud. Every rock, tree, twig, and blade of 
grass upon that mountain-top is instantly transformed into 
translucent silver. 

Now, if that mountain be due east of you, and if you will 
rise next morning in time to see the sun come forth as a bride- 
groom from his chamber, you will see a picture such as no man 
in this world has seen surpassed, and such as might have been 
in the mind of the vision-wrapped Apostle, when flitted before 
him the sublime semblance of the rainbow of emerald enclos- 



THE GREAT VIRGINIAN. 223 

ing the throne of shining gold in the midst of the crystal sea! 
The storm has disappeared, the winds are mute, the heavens 
have assumed their deep, solemn azure. Sharp-pointed spears 
of golden fire come up from the east and dart among and through 
the translucent warp of that silver bridal veil which covers the 
mountain-top with its ineffable glories. As the God of Day 
mounts higher and higher towards his throne, showers of shim- 
mering radiance are scattered in whirling waves over the out- 
stretched arms of the giant oaks and upon the emerald cones of 
the pines, leaping from branch to branch, until their rays meet 
and mingle in a crown of corruscating glory. And then, in a 
maze of wonder and delight which is almost agony, you feel 
that you are gazing upon the Crystal Palace of God, whose 
splendors mortal man may be happy that he can see and live; 
and that ten thousand polished diamonds, the largest and the 
brightest that ever glittered in a monarch's diadem, would not 
compare with the glory which is made manifest in a single tree 
on that mountain-top " wherewith it is clothed." 

ZEBULON B. VANCE. 



THE GREAT VIRGINIAN. 

I HAVE spoken of our hero's character and life, as they at- 
tract the admiration of mankind — of the qualities which 
enemies and friends may venerate alike. It would be unmanly 
affectation in me to pretend that, here in Maryland, we loved 
him and remember him chiefly for these. We are proud of the 
great name — as proud as any — but the household word is 
dearer far to us. His story and his memory are linked with 
all the hopes and triumphs, the exultation and despair, which 
made a century of those four bitter, bloody, torturing years. 
He was to us the incarnation of his cause — of what was noblest 
in it, and knightliest, and best. Whatever of perplexity beset 
his path before he chose it, he knew no doubts when it was 
chosen. He followed where it led him, knowing no step back- 
ward. Along it, through victory and defeat, our sympathies 



224 READING AND ORATORY. 

and prayers went with him. Around him gathered the fresh, 
valiant manhood of our State, and many a brave young heart 
that ceased to beat beside him drew him but closer to the 
bleeding hearts in all our saddened homes. These are the ties 
that bind him to us. These are the memories that troop around 
us here to-night — not of the far-off hero, belonging to the 
world and history — but memories of our hero — ours — the man 
that wore the gray! Not in the valley where he sleeps, not 
among the fields he made immortal, lives he, or will he live, in 
fonder recollection, than where Calvert planted freedom. 

"And far and near, through vale and hill, 
Are faces that attest the same; 
The proud heart flashing through the eyes, 
At sound of his loved name." 

And when they tell us, as they do, those wiser, better brethren 
of ours — and tell the world, to make it history — that this, our 
Southern civilization, is half barbarism, we may be pardoned if 
we answer: Behold its product and its representative! " Of 
thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather 
they grapes." Here is Robert Lee — show us his fellow! 

S. T. WALLIS. 



THE MOTHER AND CHILD. 

THE flowers you reared repose in sleep, 
With folded bells where the night-dew weeps. 
And the passing wind like a spirit grieves 
In a gentle dirge through the sighing leaves. 
The sun will kiss the dew from the rose, 
Its crimson petals again unclose, 
And the violet ope the soft blue ray 
Of its modest eye to the gaze of day; 
But when shall the deAvs and shades that lie 
So cold and damp on thy shrouded eye. 
Be chased from the folded lids, my child, 
And thy glance break forth so sweetly wild? 



THE MOTHER AND CHILD. 22$ 

The fawn, thy partner in sportive play, 

Has ceased his gambols at close of day. 

And his weary limbs are relaxed and free 

In gentle sleep by his favorite tree. 

He will wake ere long, and the rosy dawn 

Will call him forth to the dewy lawn, 

And his sprightly gambols be seen again 

Through the parted boughs and upon the plain; 

But oh, when shall slumber cease to hold 

The limbs that lie so still and cold? 

When wilt thou come with thy tiny feet 

That bounded my glad embrace to meet? 

The birds you tended have ceased to sing, 

And shaded their eyes with the velvet wing; 

And, nestled among the leaves of the trees, 

They are rocked to rest by the cool night-breeze. 

The morn will the chains of sleep unbind, 

And spread their plumes to the freshening wind; 

And music from many a warbler's mouth 

Will honey the grove, like the breath of the south; 

But when shall the lips, whose lightest word 

Was sweeter far than the warbling bird. 

Their rich wild strain of melody pour? 

They are mute! they are cold! they will ope no more'. 

When Heaven's great bell, in a tone sublime, 
Shall sound the knell of departed Time, 
And its echoes pierce, with a voice profound. 
Through the liquid sea and the solid ground. 
Thou wilt wake, my child, from the dreamless sleep 
Whose oblivious dews thy senses steep, 
And then shall the eye, now dim, grow bright 
In the glorious rays of Heaven's own light; 
The limbs that an angel's semblance wore. 
Bloom 'neath living trees on the golden shore; 
And the voice that's hushed, God's praises hymn 
'Mid the bands of the harping seraphim. 

N. C. BROOKS. 



226 READING AND ORATORY. 

The poet and scholar, Nathan Covington Brooks, LL. D., was born in Cecil Co., 
Md., August 12, 1819, and graduated at St. John's College, Annapolis. He entered at 
once upon his career as a teacher, and has followed it without interruption to the pres- 
ent time. He was Principal of the Baltimore High School, 1839-1848; and President of 
the Baltimore Female College since 1848. He was the first head of each of these im- 
portant institutions and gave to each its tone and character. His publications have been 
numerous and varied. Those by which he is best known are his classical series, grow- 
ing out of his wants'and profession as a teacher. They are the following: jEneid oj 
Virgil; Ovid^s Metamorphoses; Ccesar^s Conutientaries ; Historia Sacra; Viri Illustres 
Americani; First Latin Lessotis: First Greek Lessons; Greek Collectanea Evangelica; 
Scripture Manuals containing Religious Exercises for Morning and Evening, for 
Schools and Families. While all these books aie admirable in design and execution, 
that whicTi nas gained the greatest credit for the richness and variety of its scholarship, 
and for its abundant helps in the way of illustrations, is his edition of Ovid. Besides 
these works in the line of his profession. Dr. Brooks published in 1865 A Cotnplete His- 
tory of the Mexican War. He has written a good deal of miscellaneous matter, and in 
1840 issued a neat volume. The Literary A maranth., a collection of pieces in prose and 
poetry. — Harfs Atnerican Literature. 



VINDICATION OF THE RECONSTRUCTED 
SOUTH. 

MR. PRESIDENT, — I do not propose to reply to the speech 
just delivered. I am quite willing that it shall go to the 
country and be its own answer. It was not my purpose origin- 
ally to participate in this debate, although repeatedly urged to 
do so by friends around me with whom I am united in senti- 
ment and sympathy of feeling. Fearing that the cause of truth, 
of justice, and of a distressed people would suffer rather than be 
benefited when defended by those of my class, against whom 
there exists in this chamber so much of prejudice and ani- 
mosity, I felt that^my duty to the people I represent required 
that I should suffer in silence the insults which Senators on the 
other side of this chamber deemed themselves authorized to 
utter here. But, sir, when the people of my section are held 
up to the gaze of the civilized world as murderers, assassins, 
and semi-barbarians, I feel that further silence will subject 
them to a more cruel misconstruction than can be extorted 
from any perversion, however gross and unjust, of my utterances 
here. And if my voice now betrays, as I fear it does, undue ex- 
citement, it is not the excitement of anger, but that of a man 



VINDICATION OF THE RECONSTRUCTED SOUTH. 22/ 

aggrieved at the unjust assaults upon the reputation of his people, 
conscious that they deserve a vindication which he feels him- 
self inadequate to make. 

Sir, I was appalled at the spectacle yesterday presented in this 
chamber of American Senators — the spectacle of a body of men 
with a common ancestry, proud of a common history, inheritors 
of a common birthright of freedom, confronted by a common 
destiny, seeking to pillory the reputation, the honor, the fair 
name, and, of consequence, the rights and the liberties of one 
large section of this country, before the civilized world. To say 
that I am surprised at such a spectacle would not express my 
emotion. I am utterly amazed that there should be found in 
the hearts of men with whom I daily associate in this chamber 
on terms of pleasant intercourse, so much of hate and vindic- 
tiveness and of the spirit of vengeance as has been exhibited in 
this debate. I was totally unprepared for it; and if to-day I 
believed that the expressions which I have heard from Senators' 
lips on this floor reflected the sentiments of the Northern 
people, I would be overcome with despair, and feel that the 
time had come for republican government to die. If the utter- 
ances which I have heard are indicative of the policy which is 
in future to be pursued by this powerful Government toward 
the disarmed people of my section, then, sir, let us have done 
with this farce of local self-government at once and forever. But 
I do not believe it. Sir, I do not believe that a majority of the 
Northern people entertain the sentiments expressed upon this 
floor. I do not believe that the brave men with whom we were 
threatened on yesterday, or any considerable portion of them, 
cherish any such sentiments. I believe that an overwhelming 
majority of the American people, North and South, East and 
West, utterly abhor the spirit of animosity, of hate, and oppres- 
sion manifested in this debate. I believe that the day is com- 
ing when this fact will be made manifest. I believe that the 
movement inaugurated in 1872, under the lead of that large- 
headed and large-hearted man of New York, intended to destroy 
this spirit, to produce a better state of feeling between the sec- 
tions, to enable the people better to know each other, to bring fra- 



228 READING AND ORATORY, 

ternity to the once opposing soldiers, and to inaugurate an era of 
peace, of good-will, and of law, will go on to its final consumma- 
tion, in spite of all the efforts to prevent it. 

JOHN B. GORDON. 



ON ELOQUENCE. 

IN the art of speaking, as in all other arts, a just combination 
of those qualities necessary to the end proposed is the true 
rule of taste. Excess is always wrong. Too much ornament 
is an evil — too little, also. The one may impede the progress 
of the argument, or divert attention from it, by the introduc- 
tion of extraneous matter — the other may exhaust attention, or 
weary by monotony. Elegance is in a just medium. The 
safer side to err on is that of abundance — as profusion is 
better than poverty; as it is better to be detained by the beau- 
ties of a landscape than by the weariness of the desert. 

It is commonly, but mistakenly, supposed that the enforcing of 
truth is most successfully effected by a cold and formal logic; 
but the subtilties of dialectics and the forms of logic may play 
as fantastic tricks with truth as the most potent magic of 
Fancy. The attempt to apply mathematical precision to moral 
truth is always a failure, and generally a dangerous one. If 
man, and especially masses of men, were purely intellectual, 
then cold reason would alone be influential to convince — but 
our nature is most complex, and many of the great truths 
which it most concerns us to know are taught us by our instincts, 
our sentiments, our impulses, and our passions. Even in regard 
to the highest and holiest of all truths, to know which concerns 
us here and hereafter, we are not permitted to approach its in- 
vestigation in the confidence of proud and erring reason, but 
are taught to become as little children, before we are worthy 
to receive it. It is to this complex nature that the speaker ad- 
dresses himself, and the degrees of power with which all the ele- 
ments are evoked is the criterion of the orator. His business, 
to be sure, is to convince, but more to persuade; and most of 
all, to inspire with noble and generous passions. 



THE DEAD OF MOBILE. 229 

It is the cant of criticism, in all ages, to make a distinction 
between logic and eloquence, and to stigmatize the latter as 
declamation. Logic ascertains the weight of an argument, 
Eloquence gives it momentum. The difference is that between 
the vis inertia of a mass of metal, and the same ball hurled 
from the cannon's mouth. Eloquence is an argument alive and 
in motion— the statue of Pygmalion, inspired with vitality. 

WILLIAM C. PRESTON. 

William Campbell Prestok, statesman, was born in Philadelphia, December 27, 1794, 
while his father, who was a member of Congress from Virginia, was attending a ses- 
sion of that body. He graduated at South Carolina College, read law in Virginia, spent 
several years in Europe, and attended lectures in the University of Edinburgh. In 
1819 he returned to \'irginia, and the next year was admitted to the bar. He now settled 
in South Carolina, and rapidly gained distinction as a public speaker, was sent to the 
Legislature, and became one of the leaders of the nullification party; in 1836 was 
elected to the U. S. Senate, but differing from his colleague and his constituents in re- 
gard to supporting Van Buren, he resigned and resumed the practice of law. He was 
President of South Carolina College (1845-51), and established the Columbia Lyceum, 
giving it his library of 3,000 volumes. His death occurred at Columbia, S. C, May 22, 
i86o. 



THE DEAD OF MOBILE. 

ROBINSON, Lude, Armistead, Summers, Jewett, O'Brien, 
Kennedy, Drummond, Booth! Friends, brethren, com- 
rades, and countrymen! Shining marks for the arrows of Death! 
Men who combined, in various degrees and proportions, the 
knightly virtues of the cavalier with the cultivated tastes of the 
scholar and the unselfish heroism of the patriot! They were 
all cut off in the bloom of youth, or the vigor of early manhood; 
but let us not lament their fate too deeply. They were spared 
— most of them — the spectacle of a conquered, crushed, and 
prostrate country; the experience of broken hopes, blighted 
homes, and shattered fortunes. They have not lived to witness, 
as we have, the subversion of sound and wholesome social 
order, and the ///version of all correct ideas of truth, honor, 
loyalty, and duty; to see the lowest of the land in lofty station, 
and the high-hearted and the faithful trodden in the dust; to 
learn that success is the test of truth, diVid penitence the fit atone- 



230 READING AND ORATORY. 

ment for failure; that fidelity to the principal is foul treason to 
the agent; and that loyalty to the mother is rank rebellion 
against the nurse. 

They have not been called — harder and sadder still — to meet, 
in time of trial, averted looks and cold and formal courtesy 
from familiar friends in whom they trusted; or to see others, 
who had bravely borne the perils of fire and sword, yielding to 
the trials of poverty or the temptations of pelf, and bartering 
their own glorious birthright and their children's heritage of 
honor for a platter of dirty pottage I Their memory is not 
branded with the mockery of pay-don — pardon for duty faith- 
fully done! No, sir, they have gone, with Sidney Johnston, and 
Stonewall Jackson, and Polk, and Rhodes, and Hill, and our 
own Gracie, and a long array of others, to swell the shining 
host of the Unpardoned! 

W. T. WALTHALL. 



THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY. 

THE knightliest of the knightly race, 
Who, since the days of old, 
Have kept the lamp of chivalry 

Alight in hearts of gold; 
The kindliest of the kindly band. 

Who, rarely hating ease. 
Yet rode with Spottswood round the land, 
And Raleigh round the seas: 

Who climbed the blue, embattled hills, 

Against uncounted foes, 
And planted there in valleys fair 

The lily and the rose; 
Whose fragrance lives in many lands. 

Whose beauty stars the earth, 
And lights the hearths of happy homes 
. With loveliness and worth; 



TAKiNc; i.K.wi; (»i niK si:\ati:. 231 

: We thought tht-y slept! — the sons who kept 

The names of noble sires — 
And shimhered while the darkness crept 

Around their vigil (ires. 
But still the Golden Horseshoe Knights 

Their Old Dominion keep, 
Whose foes have found enchanted ground, 

lUit not a knight asleep! k. o. ticknor. 

Dr. Francis Ohki'.kv Ticknor was born in Haldwin Co., Georgia, in 1823, antl cllcfl in 
t^olumbus, (ia., where he had resi<lc(l for the larger portion of his life, in December. 
T874. A scientist of hi^li attuiiiinents, and a practical physician trusted anil beloved by 
'all who knew him, he devoted his leisure hours to -Art, particularly to music and poetry. 
'Ad a poet, his tenuis IS essentially lyrical. Its orijiiiiality and fervor are remarkable. 
It has been well said that ''his style is best suited to forceful ballads. Look, for ex- 
am|)le, at that superb lyric, 7Vu' I'irjfhiinns 0/ t/ir I'ai/iy. Something in the direct, 
tlL'ar-riii;;ing expression of this song reminds us of— 

" M//«/.f quanti In fiainire chaiiifiagne 
FhI I'll firoic 11U.X I'/nuicrr.':, 
l.u/\ loiiTaiit tons irs iin>i)^frx, 

Siiiihldiit scul tiiiir la < ltaiiif<af;in' — 

" With Ticknor as with HerauKer simplicity is strength." How admirably is this illus- 
trated in I. title driffin.' ^Ve pity the person who can [)eruse it without a certain 
throbbing at heart, and a moisture in the eyes. I'ew men of Ticknor's poetical gifts 
ever existed so careless of what is generally called fame. His noblest productions ap- 
peared in obscure local periodicals, and after then being issued thus, he seemed to dismiss 
them from his mind with a lordly sort of carelessness, which proved how alfluent were 
the man's artistic and imaginative resources,— /'««/ //. Iluync. 



TAKING LEAVE OF THE SENATE. 

IRISH, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the 
Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of 
Mississipj)i, by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention 
assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. 
Under these circumstances, of course my functions are termi- 
nated here. It seems to me proper, however, that I should ap- 
pear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and 
I will say but very little more. The occasion does not invite 
me to go into argument; and my physical condition would riot 
permit me to do so if it were otherwise; and yet it seems to be^- 



232 READING AND ORATORY. 

come me to say something on the part of the State I here 
represent, on an occasion so solemn as this. 

It is known to Senators who have served with me here, that 
I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of 
State sovereignty, the right of a State to secede from the Union. 
Therefore, if I had not believed there was justifiable cause; if 
I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient 
provocation, or without an existing necessity, I should still, 
under my theory of the Government, because of my allegiance 
to the State of which I am a citizen, have been bound by her 
action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I do think 
she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I conferred 
with her people before that act was taken, counselled them then 
that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist 
when the convention met, they should take the action which 
they have now adopted. 

I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of 
mine with the advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the 
Union, and to disregard its constitutional obligations by the 
nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. Nullification 
is a remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and 
against the agent of the States. It is only to be justified when 
the agent has violated his constitutional obligations, and a State, 
assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus 
to act, and appeals to the other States of the Union for a decis- 
ion; but when the States themselves, and when the people of 
the States, have so acted as to convince us that they will not 
regard our constitutional rights, then, and then for the first time, 
arises the doctrine of secession in its practical application. 

A great man who now reposes with his fathers, and who has 
been often arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, advo- 
cated the doctrine of nullification, because it preserved the 
Union. It was because of his deep-seated attachment to- the 
Union, his determination to find some remedy for existing ills 
short of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina to the 
other States, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nulli- 
fication, which he proclaimed-to be peaceful, to be within the 



TAKING LEAVE OF THE SENATE. 233 

limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only to be 
a means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of the States 
for their judgment. 

Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be 
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There 
was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come 
again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our 
Government, and the inalienable right of the people of the 
States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is 
a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has 
made to any agent whomsoever. 
*********** 

Then Senators, we recur to the compact which binds us to- 
gether, we recur to the principles upon which our Government 
was founded; and when you deny to us the right to withdraw 
from a Government which thus perverted threatens to be des- 
tructive of our rights, we but tread in the path of our ancestors 
when we proclaim our independence, and take the hazard. 
This is done not in hostility to others, not to injure any sec- 
tion of the country, and not even for our own pecuniary benefit; 
but from the high and solemn motive of defending and protect- 
ing the rights we inherited, and which it is our sacred duty to 
transmit unshorn to our children. 

I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling of my 
constituents towards yours. I am sure I feel no hostility to you. 
Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, 
whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to 
whom I cannot now say, in the presence of my God, I wish you 
well; and such, I am sure, is the feeling of the people whom 
I represent towards those whom you represent. I therefore feel 
that I but express their desire, when I say I hope, and they hope, 
for peaceful relations with you, though we must part. They 
may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as they have been 
in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on 
every portion of the country; and if you will have it thus, we 
will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from 
the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the 



234 READING AND ORATORY. 

-bear; and thus, putting our trust in God, and in our own firm 
hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may. 

In the course of my service here, associated at different times 
•with a great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with 
'whom I have served long; there have been points of collision, but 
whatever of offence there has been to me, I leave here; I carry 
with me no hostile remembrance. Whatever offence I have 
given which has not been redressed, or for which satisfaction 
has not been demanded, I have, Senators, in this hour of our 
parting, to offer you my apology for any pain which, in the heat 
of discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence unencumbered of the 
remembrance of any injury received, and having discharged the 
duty of making the only reparation in my power for any injury 
offered. 

Mr. President and Senators, having made the announcement 
which the occasion seemed to require, it only remains for me to 
bid you a final adieu. 

JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



Jefferson Davis, statesman, was born in Christian Co., Ky., in 1808. He graduated 
at West Point in 1828, and served in the Black Hawk and other Indian wars from 1831 
to 1835. Having moved to Mississippi, he was elected to Congress by the Democrats 
in 1845, but resigned next year and joined Gen. Taylor in Mexico. At the battle of 
Buena Vista Col. Davis with his regiment of Mississippi Rifles turned the fortunes of 
the day and saved the army. In 1847 he was appointed to fill a vacany in U. S. Senate, 
and the next year elected to the same office. During Pierce's administration he was 
Secretary of War, and at its close he was returned to the Senate. In February, i86t, he 
resigned his seat, and was elected Provisional President of the Southern Confederacy; 
and in November of the same year was elected, under the Constitution adopted, 
Presiaent for a term of six years. His inauguration took place in Richmond, Va., 
■February 22, 1862. Upon the fall of Richmond he retreated southward, was "captured fh 
Southern Georgia, confined two years in Fortress Monroe, and finally released with- 
out trial. The report, so industriously circulated by Federal writers just after the war, 
that he was disguised in woman's apparel when captured, has been shown to be utterly 
false upon the testimony of Col. W. P. Johnston, Ex-Gov. F. R. Lubbock, Hon. John 
H. Reagan, and other distinguished gentlemen who were members of Mr. Davis' mili- 
tary family and were captured with him. (See Southern Historical Society Papers, 
■March, 1S7S). He has been much maligned by political writers on both sides, but the 
love, veneration, and confidence of his people have remained unshaken. At present he 
Is engaged in writing a history of his administration, a work which the world is anx- 
iously expecting. 



READING AND ORATORY. 235 



IS A TURTLE A FISH? 
DEBATE IN VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 

MR. SPEAKER, — A bill having for its object the marking 
and specifying the close season for catching and killing 
turtles and terrapins has just been introduced by the gentle- 
man from Rockbridge, who asks that it be referred to the 
Committee on Game, of which I have the honor to be chair- 
man. To this disposition of the bill the gentleman from 
Gloucester demurs, on the ground that as turtles and terra- 
pins are fish, and not game, it should go to the Committee 
on Fish and Oysters. 

On Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, says the honorable 
gentleman, turtles and terrapins are frequently captured, many 
miles out from land, in nets or with hook and Hne, as all other 
members of the finny tribe are; and that, therefore, they are 
fish, and nothing but fish. 

Sir, I have the profoundest respect for the gentleman's opin- 
ion; as a lawyer he has achieved not only a State but a national 
reputation, but even I, opposing a pin's point against the shield 
of Pelides, take issue with him. Sir, / am no lawyer, I don't 
understand enough of law to keep out of its meshes, but I will 
answer his sophistries with a. few plain, incontrovertible facts, 
and, as the old saw says, facts are stubborn things. 

Is a turtle a fish? I opine not. Down on the old Virginia 
lowlands of the Potomac River, where I come from, the colored 
people have dogs trained to hunt turtles when they come up on 
to the dry land to deposit their eggs, and when they find them 
they bark as if treeing a squirrel. Now, I ask the House, did 
any member ever hear of a fish being hunted with dogs? 

Who does not know that a turtle has four legs, those legs 
feet, and those feet are armed with claws, like a cat's, a panther's, 
or a lion's? Has the gentleman from Gloucester ever s^en a 
fish with talons? I trow not. 

It is well known that a turtle can be kept in a cellar for 
weeks, and even months, without food and water. Can a fish 



236 READING AND ORATORY. 

live without water? Why sir, it has grown into a proverb that 
it cannot. And yet the gentleman says a turtle is a fish! 

Do we not all know that you may cut off a turtle's head, and 
that he won't die until the sun goes down? Suppose now a 
modern Joshua should point his sword — which is as potent as 
Ithuriel's spear — at the sun and command it to stand still in 
the heavens; why, Mr. Speaker, the turtle would live a thousand 
years with its head off. — And yet the gentleman says a turtle is 
a fish. 

^sop tells the fable of the race between the tortoise and the 
hare, and we are left to believe that it took place on dry land — 
the author nowhere intimating that it was a swimming match. 
Did the gentleman from Gloucester ever hear of a fish running 
a quarter stretch and coming out winner of the silver cup? 

I read but a short time ago, Mr. Speaker, of a man who had 
a lion, which, he offered to bet, could whip any living thing. 
The challenge was accepted and the money put up. A snap- 
ping turtle was then produced, which conquered the lordly king 
of beasts at the first bite. Can the gentleman from Gloucester 
bring any fish from York River to do the same? 

Again, a turtle has a tail; now, what nature intended him to 
do with that caudal appendage, I cannot divine. He does not 
use it like our Darwinian ancestors, the monkeys, who swing 
themselves from the trees by their tails; nor like a cow or mule, 
as a brush in fly-time; nor yet as our househould pet, the dog, 
who wags a welcome to us with his; nor, finally, does he use it 
to swim with. And, sir, if the gentleman from Gloucester ever 
saw a fish who didn't use his tail to swim with, then he has dis- 
covered a new and most wonderful variety. 

Mr. Speaker, I will not take up more of the valuable time of 
the House by further discussion of this vexed question. I will 
have only one more shot at the gentleman, — to prove to him that 
the turtle is the oldest inhabitant of the earth. Last summer, 
sir, I was away up in the mountains of Giles County, some two 
hundred miles from the ocean. One day, sauntering leisurely 
up the mountain road, I found a land tortoise or turtle, and 
picking him up, I saw some quaint and curious characters en- 



IN THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING. 237 

graved in the horny shell on his back. Through lapse of time 
the letters were nearly illegible, but, by dint of persevering 
efforts, I deciphered the inscription, and read — 

ADAM. PARADISE. YEAR ONE. 

Mr. Speaker, I have done. If I have not convinced every 
member on this floor, except the gentleman from Gloucester, 
that a turtle is not a fish, then I appeal to the wisdom of this 
House to tell me what in the name of common sense it is! 

ALEXANDER HUNTER. 



IN THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING. 

FAIR were our visions! Oh, they were as grand 
As ever floated out of Faerie land; 
Children were we in single faith. 
But Godlike children, whom nor death. 
Nor threat, nor danger drove from Honor's path, 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

Proud were our men, as pride of birth could render; 
As violets, our women pure and tender; 

And when they spoke, their voice did thrill, 

Until at eve, the whip-poor-will, 
At morn the mocking-bird, were mute and still 

In the land where we were dreaming. 

And we had graves that covered more of glory 
Than ever tracked tradition's ancient story; 

And in our dream we wove the thread 

Of principles for which had bled 
And suffered long our own immortal dead, 

In the land where we were dreaming. 

Though in our land we had both bond and free, 
Both were content; and so God let them be; — 



23;8 READING AND ORATORY, 

.' - - Till envy coveted our land 

And those fair fields our valor won: 
But little recked we, for we still slept on, 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

Our sleep grew troubled and our dreams grew wild, 
Red meteors flashed across our heaven's field; 
Crimson the moon; between the Twins 
Barbed arrows fly; and then begins 
Such strife as when disorder's Chaos reigns, 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

Down from her sunlit heights smiled Liberty, 
And waved her cap in sign of Victory — 
The world approved, and everywhere 
Except where growled the Russian bear. 
The good, the brave, the just gave us their prayer 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

V/e fancied that a Government was ours — 
We challenged place among the world's great powers; 
- • -. We talked in sleep of Rank, Commission, 

Until so lifelike grew our vision, 
That he who dared to doubt but met derision 

In the land where we were dreaming. 

We looked on high: a banner there was seen, 
Whose field was blanched and spotless in its sheen — 
Chivalry's cross its Union bears. 
And vet'rans swearing by their scars 
Vowed they would bear it through a hundred wars 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

A hero came amongst us as we slept; 
At first he lowly knelt — then rose and wept; 
Then gathering up a thousand spears 
" — He swept acfctes the afield of Mars ;- •■ i. ' » 



IN THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING. 239 

Then bowed farewell and walked beyond the stars — 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

We looked again: another figure still 

Gave hope, and nerved each individual will — 

Full of grandeur, clothed with power, 

Self-poised, erect, he ruled the hour 
With stern, majestic sway — of strength a tower 

In the land where we were dreaming. 

As, while great Jove, in bronze, a warder God, 
Gazed eastward from the Forum where he stood, 
Rome felt herself secure and free, 
So, "Richmond's safe," we said, while we 
Beheld a bronzed Hero — Godlike Lee, 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

As wakes the soldier when the alarum calls — 
As wakes the mother when the infant falls — 
As starts the traveller when around 
His sleeping couch the fire-bells sound — 
So woke our nation with a single bound. 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

Woe! woe is me! the startled mother cried — 
While we have slept our noble sons have died! 

Woe! woe is me! how strange and sad. 

That all our glorious vision's fled 
And left us nothing real but the dead 

In the land where we dreaming. 

And are they really dead, our martyred slain? 

No! dreamers! morn shall bid them rise again 
From every vale — from every height 
On which they seemed to die for right — 

Their gallant spirits shall renew the fight 
In the land where we were dreaming. 

-^ - ^ D.B. LUCAS; ' 



240 THE SOUTHERN ORATOR. 



MODERN PROGRESS IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

IN physical science man is to-day solving the secrets of Na- 
ture,and at his command — the wave of the magic wand of the 
modern enchanter, and the "open sesame" of his efforts — Na- 
ture opens up her depths and yields her treasure to his comfort 
and his happiness. A vast army of workers are moving on the 
yet unconquered strongholds of the material world, investing 
the very citadel of Nature. That which they have done is but 
an earnest of what they will do. Theirs has been a mighty- 
work, if we look at it only in its results. It has lengthened 
life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has 
inceased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to 
the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has 
spanned great rivers with bridges of form unknown to our 
fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt from heaven to earth; it 
has lighted up the night with the splendor of the day; it has 
extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the 
power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has 
annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspond- 
ence, all friendly offices, all despatch of business; it has en- 
abled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the 
air, to penetrate securely into the recesses of the earth. It has 
tunnelled great mountains, made the sea a bed for an electric 
bond of continents, turned the course of rivers, reclaimed vast 
regions from Nature's waste, and made them a habitation for 
man; made the storm and whirlwind a matter of foreknowl- 
edge, and the human voice audible in tone and accent in other 
lands, preserving it for other times. " These are but a part of 
its fruits, and of its first fruits. For it is an activity which 
never rests, which has never attained its end, which is never 
perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was 
invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-post to- 
morrow." 

And more than all, it has revealed the grandeur and order 
and beauty of that wonderful creation, the material Universe, 



TRUE GREATNESS IN A PEOPLE. 24I 

has dispelled the superstition and awe in which Nature's forces 
and processes were held, and revealed them as the beneficent 
outflowing of Divine goodness, intended neither to baffle man 
in the sphere of conduct nor confound him in the region of be- 
lief, capable of being made the benign instruments of intelli- 
gent will and the servants of enlightened conscience. 

J. p. K. BRYAN. 



TRUE GREATNESS IN A PEOPLE. 

UTILITARIANISM and political economy may be useful 
in developing the physical resources of a people, but if we 
wish to develop those qualities, those principles, those ideas, 
those thoughts that kindle and glow through the pages of 
history, we must cultivate poetry, arms, and eloquence. No 
people ever were a great people unless they were heroic — no 
people ever were a great people unless they had noble princi- 
ples and commanding ideas. It was Greek philosophy and 
Greek poetry, so rich, so rare, so natural, that first gave those 
burning thoughts and ideas to the world which have kindled 
with enthusiasm the heart of man in every age and in every 
country. It was the sacred light of the vestal virgins to guide 
the worshippers of mind through the trackless ages of darkness. 
These ideas and these thoughts were like the rays of the sun 
falling through the crevices of a dungeon to light the eye and 
warm the heart of man, chained down as he was in the great 
charnel-house of corruption and barbarism for centuries. 

And so in politics and government, it was Jewish laws in their 
Pentateuch, and Jewish institutions, that first laid the founda- 
tions upon which all permanant civilization has been built — 
foundations which will defy forever the sweeping whirlwind of 
time itself. And this it is that has made them a master race of 
the earth. The Romans gave us the wise and broad principles 
of the civil law, which has produced a profound effect upon 
the civilization of modern times. And the Pandects of Jus- 
tinian, with the Institutes by Tribonian, will live long after the 



242 READING AND ORATORY. 

triumphs of their Caesars are forgotten. And so in like manner 
the English, with their Norman blood, have given us the ex- 
pansive common law, with their Magna Charta, which have de- 
veloped personal rights and defined individual liberty as was 
never done before; and through this they have made their im- 
press upon future ages, which will last long after Britannia's 
" march o'er the mountain wave" has passed from the memory 
of man. 

And so, also, if we are to be remembered in after times, it 
will be through our national declaration of political rights and 
our Constitution, which will be to the separate and local rights 
of independent communities what the common law of England 
has been to the separate rights of individuals. But we must 
remember that a great charta defining liberty, if suffered to die 
from the imbecility of a degenerate race, will be but a standing 
monument of a purer and better, by which to measure our own 
deep degradation and infamy. 

F. \V. PICKENS. 



O'HARA'S BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. 

THE artistic execution of The Bivouac of the Dead is al- 
most faultless; but it is when we look at it in the light of 
those higher qualities which constitute the excellence of all 
true poetry that we fully comprehend its merit and power. In 
the perfect harmony of the spirit and tone of his verse with 
his theme; in the perfect adaptation of his style to his subject, 
and in the moving and solemn accord of the measure of his own 
spirit with that of his verse, these lines of O'Hara are unsur- 
passed. The soul of the writer moves and sings with the soul 
of his subject. Indeed, he times his verse not only to the mar- 
tial measure, but to the solemn spirit-tread with which we would 
imagine his fellow-heroes to march " o'er Fame's eternal camp- 
ing ground." The heroic yet mournful and mysterious beating 
of the feet of the song seems the same as that of " Glory," as 
" with solemn round" she " guards" — 
• .- " The bivo'uac'crf the dead." 



O'HARAS BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD. 243 

In this perfect harmony of spirit, style, and subject, and in 
this tuneful accord of the spirit of the writer with that of his 
theme, this piece is fully equal to Longfellow's Psabn of Life. 
But there is a second quality in which it far surpasses that moral- 
heroic production, and it consists in that power peculiar to 
some poets of reaching out and touching the borders of the un- 
seen. This quality is developed by Longfellow in those more 
than beautiful lines, The Footsteps of the Angels; but in this 
O'Hara far transcends him. Longfellow invokes the dwellers 
of the spirit-realm into our homes and " lays their angel hands 
in ours"; but, moved by the breath of eternal song, the blos- 
soms of O'Hara's soul not only bend and blow toward that 
mystic and shadowy land, but he visits himself the dwelling- 
place of spirits, lives and moves among their shining legions, 
and opens to us the gates of the unseen world, that we too may 
look again upon those once familiar " proud forms" and 
'■plumed heads." This is the difference which exists between 
the heroic and the tender, and this gives to The Bivouac of the 
Dead its solemn majesty and sublime beauty. 

This poem possesses a touch of another quality which gives 
to poetry its loftiest elevation. It is not outwardly developed 
by any word or figure, but in the first few stanzas of the ode a 
sympathetic reader will find himself inhaling that peculiar, sad, 
and solemn atmosphere of prophecy which most strangely and 
mournfully hangs about the spirits of some of the gifted of 
earth. The nature of the soul and song of the writer seems to 
be attuned so exactly to that of the departed heroes of whom he 
sings, that behind the martial measure of his verse there seems 
to move a muffled fate which whispers that their home will 
soon be his. The combination which this production contains 
of spirit-reach and spirit-prescience is the- highest, strangest, 
and most solemn gift a poet may possess. Genius has truly 
breathed immortal life into these lines, and they will live when 
many of the fading, dying things that now are seen in Ameri- 
can literature shall have passed away forever. 

G. W. RANCK. 

G. VV. Ranck. author, was born in Kentuckv. of Huguenot blood, and received "a 
6nished education. H* was Professof in Kentucky University; editor of Lejctkglon 



244 READING AND ORATORY. 

Obserrier and Reporter; but is best known from his works, History of Lexington^ and 
CHara and His Elegies^ wiiich have been most favorably received by the critics and 
the reading public. Mr Ranck resides at Lexington, Ky. 



THE STARS AND STRIPES. 

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS, it is with no ordinary pride that 
I, who have opposed all these sectional parties, can stand 
here in the city of Atlanta, in the very centre of all our sorrows, and 
raise my voice, fearing no successful contradiction when I affirm, 
that the Union never made war tipon the South. It was not the 
Union, my countrymen, that slew your children; it was not the 
Union that burned your cities; it was not the Union that laid 
waste your country, invaded your homes, and mocked at your 
calamity; it was not the Union that reconstructed your States; 
it was not the Union that disfranchised intelligent citizens and 
denied them participation in their own governments. No, no! 
Charge not these wrongs upon the Union of your father? , Every 
one of these wrongs was inflicted by a diabolical sectionalism, in 
the very teeth of every principle of the American Union. So, 
equally, I say the South never made war tipon the Union. There 
has never been an hour when nine out of ten of us would not 
have given our lives for this Union. We did not leave that 
Union because we were dissatisfied with it; we did not leave 
the Union to make war on it — we left the Union because a sec- 
tional party had seized it, and we hoped thereby to avoid a 
conflict. But if war must come, we intended to fight a sectional 
party, and not the Union. Therefore, the late war, with all its 
disastrous consequences, is the direct result of sectionalism in 
the North and of sectionalism in the South, and none, I repeat, 
of these disasters are chargeable on the Union. 

When unimpassioned reason shall review our past, there is no 

subject in all our history on which our American statesmanship, 

North and South, will be adjudged to have been so unwise, so 

imbecile, and so utterly deficient, as on that one subject which 

: stiiBukted these sectional parties into existence. 



THE STARS AND STRIPES. 245 

There was nothing in slavery which could justify the North 
in forming a sectional party to cripple or destroy it, and there 
was nothing in slavery which could justify the South in leaving 
the Union to maintain it. There was no right in freedom con- 
trary to the Constitution, and there was no safety for slavery 
out of the Union. The whole African race, whether slaves or 
free, were not worth the American Union. One hour of the 
American Union has done more for human progress than all 
the governments formed by the negro race in six thousand years! 
And the dear, noble boys of the white race. North and South, 
who fell in the late war, slaying each other for the negro, were 
worth more to civilization and human happiness than the whole 
African race of the world! 

We will do justice to the colored man. We are under the 
very highest obligations of a brave manhood to do justice to the 
negro. He is not our equal. He is in our power, and coward- 
ice takes no meaner shape than when power oppresses weak- 
ness. But, in the name of civilization, in the name of our 
fathers, in the name of forty millions of living whites, and of 
hundreds of millions of their coming children; in the name of 
every principle represented by that banner above us, I do pro- 
test to-day that there is nothing in statesmanship, nothing in 
philanthropy, and nothing in patriotism, which can justify the 
peril or destruction of the rights and liberties of the white race 
in crazy wranglings over the rights and liberties of the black 
race. We have shed more white blood and wasted more white 
treasure in four years over the liberties of the negro in these 
States, than the entire negro race of the world have shed and 
wasted for their own liberties in all the ages of the world! And 
all at the bidding of sectional demagogues who still cry for 
more! 

We have buried, widowed, and orphaned one white person 
for every colored person, old and young, male and female, in 
America; and yet there are hundreds of demagogues now 
haranguing the honest, deluded masses of the North, seeking 
to keep themselves in power, by keeping alive the passions of 
sectional hate, at the hazard of every right and of ever)^ liberty 



246 READING AND ORATORY. 

intended to be preserved and protected by our American 
Union! God of our fathers! how long, oh, how long shall this 
madness continue, and successfully usurp the places, to dis- 
grace the functions, of elevated statesmanship? 

Above all the din of these sectional quarrellings, I would 
raise my voice, and proclaim to all our people, that there is 
no right or liberty for any race of any color in America, save 
in the preservation of that great American Union according to 
the principles symboled by that flag. Destroy the General 
Government, and the States will rush into anarchy. Destroy 
the States, and we will all rush into despotism and slavery. 
Preserve the General Government; preserve the States; and 
preserve both, by keeping each untrammelled in its appropriate 
sphere, and we shall preserve the rights and liberties of all sec- 
tions and of all races for all time. 

My countrymen, have you studied this wonderful American 
system of free government? Have you compared it with former 
systems, and noted how our forefathers sought to avoid their de- 
fects? Let me commend this study to every American citizen 
to-day. To him who loves liberty, it is more enchanting than 
romance, more bewitching than love, and more elevating than 
any other science. Our fathers adopted this plan, with im- 
provements in the details which cannot be found in any other 
system. With what a noble impulse of patriotism they came 
together from different States, and joined their counsels to per- 
fect this system, thenceforward to be known as the "American 
System of Free Constitutional Government'.'! The snows. that 
fall on Mount Washington are 4iot purer than the motives which 
begot it. The fresh dew-laden zephyrs from the orange groves 
of the South are not sweeter than the hopes its advent in- 
spired. The flight of our own symbolic eagle, though he blow 
his breath on the sun, cannot be higher than its expected des- 
tiny. Have the motives which so inspired our fathers become 
all corrupt in their children? Are the hopes that sustained 
them all poisoned in us? Is that high expected destiny all 
eclipsed, and before its noon? 

No, no, forever no! Patriots North, patriots South, patriots 



A CRY TO ARMS. .'247 

everywhere! let us hallow this year of Jubilee by burying all 
our sectional animosities. Let us close our ears to the men and 
the parties that teach Us to hate each other! 

Raise high that flag of our fathers! Let Southern breezes 
kiss it! Let Southern skies reflect it! Southern patriots will 
love it; Southern sons will defend it, and Southern heroes will 
die for it! And as its folds unfurl beneath the heavens, let our 
voices unite and swell the loud invocation: Flag of our Union! 
Wave on! wave ever! But wave over freemen, not over sub- 
jects! Wave over States, not over provinces! And now let 
the voices of patriots from the North, and from the East, and 
from the West, join our voices from the South, and send to 
heaven one universal according chorus: Wave on, flag of our 
fathers! Wave forever! But wave over a Union of equals, 
not over a despotism of lords and vassals; over a land of law, 
of liberty and peace, and not of anarchy, oppression, and 
strife! 

B. H. HILL. 



A CRY TO ARMS. 

HO! woodsmen of the mountain side! 
Ho! dwellers in the vales! 
Ho! ye who by the chafing tide 
Have roughened in the gales! 
Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot, 

Lay by the bloodless spade; 
Let desk, and case, and counter rot, 
And burn your books of trade. 

The despot roves your fairest lands; 

And till he flies or fears. 
Your fields must grow but armed bands, 

Your sheaves be sheaves of spears! 
Give up to mildew and to rust 

The useless tools of gain. 
And feed your country's sacred dust 

With floods of crimson rain! 



248 READING AND ORATORY. 

Come with the weapons at your call — , 

With musket, pike, or knife; 
He wields the deadliest blade of all 

Who lightest holds his life. 
The arm that drives its unbought blows 

With all a patriot's scorn, 
Might brain a tyrant with a rose, 

Or stab him with a thorn. 

Does any falter? let him turn, 

To some brave maiden's eyes, 
And catch the holy fires that burn 

In those sublunar skies. 
Oh! could you like your women feel, 

And in their spirit march, 
A day might see your lines of steel 

Beneath the victor's arch. 

What hope, O God! would not grow warm, 

When thoughts like these give cheer? 
The Lily calmly braves the storm. 

And shall the Palm-tree fear? 
No! rather let its branches court 

The rack that sweeps the plain; 
And from the Lily's regal port 

Learn how to breast the strain. 

Ho! woodsmen of the mountain si^e! 

Ho! dwellers in the vales! 
Ho! ye who by the roaring tide 

Have roughened in the gales! 
Come! flocking gayly to the fight, 

From forest, hill, and lake; 
We battle for our country's right. 

And for the Lily's sake! 

HENRY TIMROD. 



READING AND ORATORY. 249 



THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE. 

FAR gazing down the vista of the past, 
I view a rude house by a lofty hill; 
'Tis many lustres since I saw it last, 

But all its busy scenes are present still; 
The hill I spake of seemed to me so vast. 

It soared in awful majesty, until 
Its summit pierced the clouds, then mounting high 
Made boldly for the clearer upper sky. 

In Winter, round its venerable head 

It wrapped a mantle of the purest snow, 

From which I darted on my rustic sled. 

Like thundering lauwine to the vale below — 

Swift as an arrow from a cross-bow sped, 
To mount again, with weary steps and slow; 

But felt, with all my toils, as keen a pleasure 

As misers, when they hug their hoarded treasure. 

In Summer, round its ancient, shaggy brows, 

An emerald fillet ran, divinely fair, 
Where you might see the milk-white cattle browse, 

So high, they seemed suspended in the air; 
Too steep for villa, country-seat, or house, 

I oft repaired in boyish rapture there, 
To cull the crocus, and the orchis flowers, 
To deck my youthful sweetheart's sylvan bowers. 

Yes, sweetheart! for I had my boyish loves — 

What schoolboy has not? — and they were as deep, 
Sincere, and constant, as the god that moves 

Our stern hearts later, when the passions sleep. 
'Tis pity that our young affection proves 
So fleeting! we can see no more such groves. 
Such nymphs, such bowers, such happy moments when 
We learn to vote, and write ourselves as men. 



250 R"EADING AND ORATORY. 

Who would not be a careless boy once more, 

With uncombed locks^ torn hat, and flashing eye; 

To chase the butterflies and curlews o'er 

The blossomed heath, and never know a sigh, 

Or care?— methinks the meretricious store 
Of manhood's joys in flavor cannot vie — 

No! they're insipid, dull, compared with this, 

Our boyhood's innocent and headlong bliss. 

..The trees are greener then; the sky more near; 

The flowers more sweet; the landscape far more gay; 
The rills make softer music to the ear, 

And scantier clouds obscure the face of day: 
The rainbow, that so sweetly spans the sphere, 

Will shed its hues; the sun withdraw its ray. 
That made earth lovely, while our hearts wax cold — 
1 would to Heaven we never could grow old. 

\V. C. RICHARDSON. 

W. C. Richardson, Adjunct Professor of English in the University of Alabama, was 
born in Kentucky in 1823, and removed to Alabama in 1839. He early wrote effusions in 
prose and verse, which were published in the Southern Literary Messenger and other 
periodicals. He is the author of a poetical romaunt, entitled Caspar, which has beer 
praised by William Cullen Bryant. At the instance of the Alabama Historical Society, 
he is now engaged in writing an Epic on the Fall of the Alamo. 



EULOGY ON JOHN C. CALHOUN. 

THE great statesman of an enlightened republic, who, in 
his different relations to the State, is both ruler and 
subject, the administrator and the object of the laws, bears pre- 
eminently the sacred palladium of law and justice in his own 
bosom, as the protection of the rights of others, and as the se- 
curity of his own fidelity to legal authority. Reverencing those 
virtues in the Divine Being, who is at once their fountain 
and, .perfection, he is filled with their full dignity. And imbued 
with a sens.e of dependence upon God — recognizing Him as the 



EULOGY ON JOHN C. CALHOUN. . 25 1 

Arbitrar of Nations, who establishes and destroys — possessing 
a solemn consciousness of-accountability to a Judge of unerring 
equity — he is immeasurably elevated above the corrupt influ- 
ence of the seducing demagogue, the temptations of faction, 
the forgetfulness of duty, and the lure of false ambition. Just 
and virtuous in every relation of life, he fulfils the description 
which was given of one of the noblest citizens, " that he lived 
for his family as if he had no friends; for his friends as if he 
had no country; and for his country as if he possessed no 
friends." No plausible expediency ever deludes him from in- 
flexible principle. No party support or clamor ever blinds him 
to sacred justice. No worldly ambition ever deflects him from 
righteous duty. Knowing that the glory and safety of the re- 
public lie in peace and in the virtue of her citizens, he seeks to 
promote every measure which can foster the arts of the one, 
and enlighten, elevate, and purify the other. And affording in 
his own person the highest example of his principles — bearing 
in his own bosom the conscious dignity of his membership in a 
free commonwealth — exerting his final energies and raising his 
last voice in behalf of the country which he has served so well 
-^he will be able, even amidst lowering storms, calmly to com- 
mit his character to posterity, and his soul to that Providence 
in whom he maintained unshaken confidence to the last His 
country will verify the wisdom of his policy; she will crown his 
name with imperishable glory; she will soothe the grief of his 
widow and children with her tears of unfeigned sympathy; and 
she will lead her young citizens to adorn his grave, and to kin- 
dle at the dear and hallowed spot, as at an altar of liberty, the 
spirit of all that can ennoble the freeman and the citizen. 

Shall we ever behold the living embodiment of such a states- 
man? The universal voice of the Commonwealth — the homage 
which we are now paying to an illustrious name — the revered 
dust which lies before us — all proclaim that the character is 
real; that the man has passed forever from among us! 

JAMES W. MILES. 



252 READING AND ORATORY. 



PROFESSORS AND BOOKS. 

THERE are two things with which you will have much, nay, 
almost everything to do at college: Professors and Books; 
both excellent things, each in its way. You hardly realize how 
true a friend is the Professor; how noble his calling; how be- 
neficent and munificent his offices! The relation between Pro- 
fessor and Student should be of the most kindly character, and 
the intercourse easy and familiar as perfect respect will allow, 
no dry formalism, no rigidity of manner, no constrained pro- 
prieties on either side; but, on both sides, whatever is cordial, 
genial, and sympathizing; — on the part of the Professor, a genu- 
ine enthusiasm in unfolding the treasures of his lore, in encour- 
aging the early sallies of youthful intellectual enterprise, and in 
impressing upon the rich and heaven-born mould in his hands 
a deep sense of the excellence of knowledge, and of all that is 
elevating and beautiful in virtue; and on the part of the Student, 
an exhibition of grateful recognition of benefits confessed, and 
of reverence for the great and ennobling vocation, which, while 
it imports in the Teacher rich and abundant stores of learning, 
makes it his chosen duty and highest pleasure to pour them out 
without stint or measure, in fructifying streams like the dews 
and rains from Heaven, upon the young, tender, and impressible 
natures,— natures of immortal aspiration and destiny,— that are 
so trustingly committed to his care. 

Books are the most charming and steadfast of friends, so 
silent, so unexacting, so satisfying. You may carry them with 
you through life without the least fear of ever falling out by the 
way. In health or sickness, in prosperous or adverse fortune, 
they are always the same, never seeking you, never avoiding 
you, never turning upon you a cold, covetous, or reproachful 
eye; but always at your beck and call, wearing the same benig- 
nant look, and speaking sweet words of counsel or comfort. In 
them you commune with the wise and good of all countries 
and ages, and are admitted to the company, and made familiar 
with the thoughts and feelings of the great and gifted ones, to 



IN FAVOR OF PEACE AND RECOGNITION. 253 

whom has been vouchsafed the faculty divine to kindle hope, 
and strengthen faith, and stir the infinite in the soul of man! 
Honest friends and faithful counsellors! They oftentimes ex- 
press words of warning as well as words of cheer, but no sigh 
of weariness, no sound of complaint, has ever been heard to 
issue from their lips! 

W. D. PORTER. 



IN FAVOR OF PEACE AND RECOGNITION. 

MR. SPEAKER, — We are told that the Almighty fixes the 
boundaries of nations; that the rock-ribbed mountains 
and the flowing rivers are the eternal ligaments, that, binding 
men together in one Union, mark the limits of political States, 
and which, being the work of His hands, we must not pre- 
sumptuously venture to disturb; that geography and the physi- 
cal things of the earth, and not its peoples, are the subjects of 
government. 

This, sir, is a beautiful theory, and admirable for its moral 
design, but the history of man and his governments from the 
beginning of the world refutes it. 

" What constitutes a State? 
Not high-raised battlements or labor'd mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown'd; 

Not bays and broad-arm'd ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; 

Nor starr'd and spangled courts. 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfumes to pride — 

No! men, high-minded men, 
*******■)(•* 

Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights; and knowing, dare maintain. 

Prevent the long-aimed blow. 
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain — 

These constitute a State." 

Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to enter further into this in- 
quiry than to point to the records geography herself unfolds 



254 READING AND ORATORY. 

all round the world, to overthrow this asserted power. I do 
not venture to deny the influence that the laws of nature exert 
in fixing the boundaries of nations; but, sir, I dispute their pre- 
siding power. The limits that separated our colonies, the pride 
and dominion of State power, and even the now-warring spirit 
of secession, are but so many proofs that the reformed institu- 
tions we have attempted to establish m this New World of ours 
can find no preserving aid in the physical plans of our 
Creator. 

However pleasing to our hopes, or soothing to our anxieties, 
we must dismiss these delusive ideas. Our honorable love 
of empire, or of union, must yield to the nature of men, and, 
until we can alter it, be contented to find the jurisdictions, at 
least of free government, in those boundaries his consent or 
his passions have fixed. 

Can all the rain that falls upon the Alleghany's sides; can 
the swift torrents, or the tides that swell the banks of the Po- 
tomac, or Rappahannock, or Cumberland, or Mississippi, wash 
away from kindred hearts the memories of the precious blood 
this cruel war has shed? Can mountains hide from sorrowing 
eyes those graveyard highways that stretch across the land — 

" Where every turf beneath the feet 
Hath been a soldier's sepulchre?" 

or rivers sink beneath their beds the whitened bones that choke 
their channels up? Can the agony of the broken heart be cured? 
Can flaming anger, hate, revenge, be soothed; or pride, am- 
bition, glory, all subdued? No, Mr. Speaker; you may subju- 
gate, exterminate the Southern people, but until you can tear out 
each living heart and throw it to the dogs of war, you can never 
reunite them with you in a political union. 

Sir, the question now before us is between separation and 
subjugation. Let us not deceive ourselves. We must choose 
between these fearful alternatives, and take the olive branch, 
or closer clutch the sword. I have made, sir, my choice, and 
intend to abide its issue. As I have from the first, so I will to 
the last, stand by the side of peace and constitutional liberty. 



IN FAVOR OF PEACE AND RECOGNITION. 255 

Rather than the havoc of this desolating war with its appalHng 
effects shall be longer continued, I would prefer to see the 
Union, the States, counties, cities, and towns, with their govern- 
ments all separated and dissolved, if peacefully, into the elements 
of society or of nature; and trust to find in the wants of my 
fellow-men, undebauched by the lawlessness of war, yet purified 
by the adversity of their failure, the principles and motives of a 
more harmonious reconstruction of government. Rather than 
meet the anarchy or despotism, or both, that are now so surely 
approaching us in the backgound of this fraternal strife to de- 
stroy the few remaining sanctions of our Constitution, and sink 
every hope of any union and all free government, I, for one, 
would at once stop this war, and, recognizing the Govern- 
ment OF THE Confederate States, restore peace, prosperity, 
and happiness; and then try, in an earnest spirit of conciliation 
and honorable compromise, to regain all that may be practicable. 
The patriotism and valor of our countrymen has been vindi- 
cated; and where duly has been honorably discharged, no cen- 
sures can justly rest upon either errors or misfortunes. 

To conclude, sir, let me repeat that if I am to be forced to 
lose either, I prefer to save the Constitution of my country at 
the expense of parting from the seceded States. 

" Patria cara, carior Libertcis." 

HENRY MAY. 

Henry May was born in the District of Columbia,' February 13, 1817, and educated in 
Washington; passed the bar in Boone Co., Ky., in 1836, and removed to Baltimore 
in 1849; 'Q 1854 was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives,— and again in 1861; 
in September, 1861, he was arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned, by order of the Federal 
Executive, at the same time with the Democratic members of the Maryland Legislature, 
and other citizens. After his return from Fort Lafayette he resumed the discharge of 
his Congressional duties, which he continued until the expiration of his term, though 
exposed to the obloquy and outrage which at that time sought to stifle all independence 
of opinion or expression. At the beginning of the war, Mr. May obtained a pass from 
President Lincoln and went to Richmond, in the hope of being instrumental in the cause 
of peace, but returned unsuccessful, as matters had progressed too far. He died Sep- 
tember 35, 1866. 



256 READING AND ORATORY. 

MUSIC IN CAMP. 

TWO armies covered hill and plain, 
Where Rappahannock's waters 
Ran deeply crimsoned with the stain 
Of battle's recent slaughters. 

The summer clouds lay pitched like tents 
In meads of heavenly azure; 

And each dread gun of the elements 
Slept in its high embrasure. 

The breeze so softly blew, it made 

No forest leaf to quiver, 
And the smoke of the random cannonade 

Rolled slowly from the river. 

And now where circling hills looked down 
With cannon grimly planted, 

O'er listless camp and silent town 
The golden sunset slanted; 

When on the fervid air there came 
A strain, now rich, now tender. 

The music seemed itself aflame 
With day's departing splendor. 

A Federal band, which eve and morn 
Played measures brave and nimble, 

Had just struck up with flute and horn 
And lively clash of cymbal. 

Down flocked the soldiers to the banks, 
Till, margined by its pebbles. 

One wooded shore was blue with "Yanks," 
And one was gray with " Rebels." 

Then all was still; and then the band 
With movement light and tricksy, 



MUSIC IN CAMP. 257 

Made stream and forest, hill and strand, 
Reverberate with " Dixie." 

The conscious stream, with burnished glow, 

Went proudly o'er its pebbles, 
But thrilled throughout its deepest flow 

With yelling of the Rebels. 

Again a pause, and then again 

The trumpet pealed sonorous, 
And "Yankee Doodle" was the strain 

To which the shore gave chorus. 

The laughing ripple shoreward flew 

To kiss the shining pebbles — 
Loud shrieked the swarming Boys in Blue 

Defiance to the Rebels. 

And yet once more the bugle sang 

Above the stormy riot; 
No shout upon the evening rang — 

There reigned a holy quiet. 

The sad, slow stream its noiseless flood 

Poured o'er the glistening pebbles: 
All silent now the Yankees stood, 

All silent stood the Rebels: 

No unresponsive soul had heard 

That plaintive note's appealing. 
So deeply " Home, Sweet Home" had stirred 

The hidden founts of feeling. 

Or blue or gray, the soldier sees. 

As by the wand of fairy. 
The cottage 'neath the live-oak trees, 

The cabin by the prairie. 



258 READING AND ORATORY. 

Or cold or warm, his native skies 
Bend in their beauty o'er him: 

Seen through the tear-mist in his eyes 
His loved ones stand before him. 

As fades the iris after rain 

In April's tearful weather, 
The vision vanished as the strain 

And daylight died together. 

But memory, waked by music's art, 
Expressed in simplest numbers, 

Subdued the sternest Yankee's heart — 
Made light the Rebel's slumbers. 

And fair the form of Music shines, 

That bright celestial creature, 
Who still 'mid war's embattled lines- 

Gave this one touch of nature. 

JOHN R. THOMPSON. 



RELIEF FOR THE SUFFERING POOR OF 
IRELAND. 

EVERY consideration of high moral and political charac- 
ter calls upon us to meet this question in a liberal spirit. 
There are other incentives almost as strong and as high as those 
to which I have referred. What will be the influence of such 
an example? What a spectacle will it be for the people of the 
world to see one nation holding out her hands full of plenty, 
and pouring joy and consolation into hearts now sick with sor- 
row and into desolate and famine-stricken homes! Can you 
imagine any moral spectacle more sublime than this? Hitherto 
the hands of the nations have been red with each other's blood; 
national hearts have been without sympathy and without 
charity. Thank God, it is not so now. Governments have 



THE SUFFERING POOR OF IRELAND. 259 

been converted to Christianity, and have learned that the great 
source of human happiness consists in peace and amity among 
nations. The day is coming when nations will be bound to- 
gether in a common brotherhood, and war, if not extinguished 
and forgotten, will be less frequent, and will only arise from 
overwhelming necessity. 

There is nothing more noble than to give, to the extent of 
our ability, both food and raiment to the naked and the hungry. 
We should be proud of the opportunity. The people every- 
where are moved to act generously. From Boston to New 
Orleans, the heart of the nation is alive and panting with the 
spirit of charity. The villages emulate the cities in the exhibi- 
tion of the noblest sympathy with the sufferers. In giving this 
national bounty, we but follow the impulses of the national 
heart; we act within the pale of our duty when we undertake 
this great work; we can do what individual charity cannot do. 
I would not give the national reputation of such an act for ten 
times the appropriation proposed. I would not do this with os- 
tentation, but unobtrusively; I would not herald it with the 
sound of trumpet, and call the attention of the world to our 
charities, but I would have it done effectively. I have intro- 
duced a clause to authorize the President to send out a national 
vessel under a national flag to the British Government, carrying 
the national contribution, a present from the government of a 
people rejoicing in plenty to another government, whose people 
are suffering from a national calamity. 

What a glorious spectacle to see these floating instruments of 
death, — their decks no longer frowning with implements of de- 
struction, but wafting substantial evidences of a nation's good 
will to the afflicted! Such exhibitions would mark the onward 
march of benevolent civilization, brighten the intercourse be- 
tween nations, and speak the longing aspirations of the people 
of all climes for the advent of a holier and happier day. Yes, 
sir, I would have this offering of our sympathy and fraternal 
feelings for the generous sons of Erin and Scotia borne to them 
under our national flag; I would have all the world honor and 
love and welcome that flag, not only as it is now known, as the 



26o READING AND ORATORY. 

flag of valor, but I would broaden its stripes and brighten its 
stars by making it the welcome messenger of generosity and 
humanity. 

JOHN J. CRITTENDEN. 



GREEN MOUNT CEMETERY. 

HOW beautiful this marbled solitude, 
Where trees and polished shafts alternate rise; 
Those garb'd by Nature Avith her leafy brood. 
These with the sculptor's wreath that never dies. 
But vainly the artist with his mistress vies, 
For when her summon'd breezes, soft and light, 

Give graceful movement and harmonious sighs 
To every bough, how stiffly his seem dight! 
'Tis then her ever-green most shames his ever-white. 

Yet is their blending here most fit; the one 

An emblem of the hope which mocks at death, — 
This of some spotless spirit homeward flown, — 

Both, of the immortality of faith. 

But lo! the evening's cool, balm-freighted breath 
Lures many a wanderer from yon reeking town. 

How diversely they tread these walks of death; 
Some strut, like fops upon the pavement- stone, 
Sporting their jewell'd staffs, thinking of self alone. 

ome leap o'er tombs, expectant of applause: 
Some laugh outright that others e'er should weep; 
me sit on urns, discuss their neighbor's flaws. 
Or count again their coffer's rising heap. 
Then add to this their cargoes on the deep. 
The lawyer's thoughts seem fix'd on suit or fee, 

The doctor's nod betrays late loss of sleep, 
The priest looks townward oft, and scowls to see 
New fanes there spiring high, not the same faith as he. 



GREEN MOUNT CEMETERY. 261 

Ah me! how sad grief's various shades to mark, 
'Mid jarring bursts of glee. Turn we from these. 

How calm yon diggers of these dungeons dark 
Ply their unenvied trade. How blithe, from trees, 
The mock-bird's notes. How butterflies and bees 

Sip sweets from flowers that in corruption root. 
Here graves in every stage the gazer sees: 

Just broke — half dug — one gapes now near my foot, 

Ready to gulp its prey and close its ravening throat. 

Fast yon fair city sends her worthiest forms 
To tenant the dark, narrow homes of this. 

Oh, contrast sad! Your guests are here but worms 
Ye hospitable hearts! Take their cold kiss. 
And hail them to this feast — your last, I wis! 

Fair maiden, wake — the gnawing burglar's near — 
Eats through thy door — rouse, or thy charms be his! 

Call to thy neighbor — thou couldst twitch his ear — 

Know'st not thy neighbor? Nay, there are no gossips here. 

Yes, here they dwell; as in yon city erst 

Houses are theirs, and lots, and many a street. 

Through whose dark damps, howe'er, none yet have burst, 
Save reptiles, scenting some new winding-sheet, 
Do thither mole their way with burrowing feet, 

As scavengers in yonder living town 

Throng to remove a nuisance. Ah! I weet 

All traffic's o'er — all pangs, all pleasures gone — 

No love — no bickerings now — no strivings for renown. 

'Twere a sweet place to rest, yet holds withal 

Few charms for such as loathe this ceaseless hum. 

This sacrilegious clamor o'er the pall 

By careless crowds. Approach this vaulted tomb 
This neither house nor grave — this dungeon-home — 

How hideously within its iron grate 

Rings each light echo! Rang'd in rows of gloom. 



262 READING AND ORATORY. 

Its marble troughs their destined loads await — 
Some fireside circle gay, as yet unshent by fate. 

How can they gaze, nor feel a shuddering chill, 

On such ice-cold receptacles that yawn 
With eager jaws whene'er they wind this hill? 

Away with dreadful vaults! On some gay lawn, 

Far in the country, which the birds of dawn 
Cheer with sweet notes, we'd choose our last, lone sleep; 

Those who most love us may be thither drawn 
From marts and thoroughfares, awhile to weep. 
Who love us not — no need for their intruding step. 

G. W. ARCHER. 

G. W. Archer, M. D., poet and novelist, was born in Harford Co., Md.; he received 
an academical education, and graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; 
lived for next two years in Western Texas, and during the civil war was Surgeon in the 
Confederate army. Since 1865 he has resided in his native county. He has published: 
More Ihan She could Bear^ A Story 0/ the Gachupin War in Texas, Philadelphia: 
Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1872; and now has ready .for the press, Tales of 
Texas ^ and Other Poems, and a novel, entitled Golden Netr. 



True greatness perfected by unmer- 
ited MISFORTUNES. 

THERE would be little greatness in a world where none 
could have opportunity given them to die nobly, like Soc- 
rates and Sir Thomas More. The world owes most of its il- 
lustrious examples to the tyrants, the persecuting churches, and 
the mob. A great life is imperfect unless it hath a fit ending 
in a noble death; and to die nobly is more and better than the 
immortality which by it is best deserved; as that which entitles 
to the laurel and the crown is ever greater and more excellent 
than the laurel or crown itself. 

And it is the unmerited misfortunes of greatness that most 
seem to round and perfect it, thus proving to be its good for- 
tune, and commending it to the admiration and remembrance 
of the world. No one would wish that Aristides should not 



EULOGIUM ON ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON. 263 

have been ostracized, or Belisarius beggared. No Frenchman 
now would be willing to spare England any part of the shame 
that she won by imprisoning Napoleon upon a rock, when he 
appealed and trusted to her magnanimity, nor would his mem- 
ory be so dear to France, or his greatness be so magnified, if 
he had not died so. Prometheus chained upon the rock Cau- 
casus was greater in his tortures than Zeus gratified by his 
agonies. Captivity and chains make those who led a conquered 
people its immortal martyrs and idols; and the victor confers the 
greatest favor on the leaders whom he proscribes or disfran- 
chises, as the tyrant makes the patriots immortal whom he 
murders. 

The true value of life consists in the opportunity that it gives 
us to live well and to die well. All the rest of it we have in 
common with the animals. There may be not only goodness, 
but greatness and heroism, in the lowliest stations and the hum- 
blest lives; and one may die as nobly in a cottage or a prison 
as on the fields of battle for glory, or on the scaffold for lib- 
erty, or for faith and freedom of conscience. And a life in 
which one may do great deeds to benefit and bless his fellows, 
a life that can have so glorious an ending, is more worth, it 
seems to me, than an immortality in which there can be no 
self-sacrifice, no heroic endurance of misfortune, no welcoming 
of death for the sake of Truth and the Right. 

ALBERT PIKE. 



EULOGIUM ON ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON. 

TO-DAY it was my sad privilege to go to the grave of one 
of the greatest and best of men — a man whose name was 
identified with Texas, and whose ashes were brought back to 
lie in her soil. Great in all the relations of life; tender as a 
woman, where tenderness was necessary; bold as a lion, when 
confronted by a foe; wise in all things, with simple knowledge; — 
with this description, need I say that I refer to Albert Sidney 
Johnston? He died, as he had lived, a devotee to duty. He 



264 READING AND ORATORY. 

saw a point on the field of battle, which was the key to the 
enemy's design — which must be carried, and if carried, vic- 
tory was complete. He rode forward — and then he fell! It 
was not in the nature of that man of self-devotion and iron 
nerve to think of self; for as his lifeblood ebbed away, he 
thought only of duty and where honor called him. Thus he 
gave his life; and thus he fell in the arms of victory — complete 
it would have been, could he have lived another half-hour. In that 
half-hour — I say it without political bearing whatever — if Sidney 
Johnston's life had been prolonged, Grant would have been 
pi'isoner before he was President. 

I have only referred to the last of these heroes — last of the 
Republic of Texas — that your young men, remembering the 
long line of heroes from whom they are descended, may not 
degenerate. jefferson davis. 

Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston was born in Mason Co., Ky., in 1803, graduated 
at West Point 1826, served on frontier and in Black Hawlf War until 1834, when he re- 
signed to take part in the Texas Revolution. In 1836 he was Adjutant-General, and 
soon after succeeded Gen. Felix Huston in command of the Texan army— which led to 
a duel, in which the former was wounded; was Secretary of War of the Republic of 
Texas (1838-40), and served in Mexican War as Colonel. Re-entering the U. S. Army he 
served as Paymaster with rank of Major (1849-55), then promoted Colonel of Cavalry and 
commanded Department of Texas until 1857, when he was placed in charge of the Utah 
Expedition, which he conducted with such ability and satisfaction to the Government as 
to win the brevet of Brigadier-General. In January, i86i,he was placed in command of 
the Department of the Pacific, but resigned his commission May 3, 1861, offered his ser- 
vices to the Confederacy, was made the ranking general, assigned to the command of the 
Army of the West, and was killed on the bloody field of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. Many 
regarded him as the ablest general in the Southern service, and his death was a blow 
from which the Confederate States never recovered. He was devotedly attached to 
Texas, and in return was idolized by the people of that State, who, in accordance with 
his dying wishes, removed his remains, after the war, to Austin, where they were rein- 
terred in the State Cemetry with imposing ceremonies. 



WE WILL STAND OR FALL AA^ITH CAROLINA. 

FELLOW-CITIZENS! This is " our own, our native land!" 
It is the soil of Carolina, which has been enriched by 
the precious blood of our ancestors, shed in defence of those 
rights and liberties which we are bound by every tie, divine and 



READY FOR DUTY. 265 

human, to transmit unimpaired to our posterity. It is here that 
we have been cherished in youth and sustained in manhood by 
the generous confidence of our fellow-citizens; here repose the 
honored bones of our fathers; here the eyes of our children 
first beheld the light, and here, when our earthly pilgrim- 
age is over, we hone to sink to rest on the bosom of our com- 
mon mother! Bound to our country by such sacred and en- 
dearing ties — let others desert her, if they can — let them re- 
vile her, if they will — let them give aid and countenance to her 
enemies, if they may — but for us. We will stand or fall 
WITH Carolina! 

God grant that the wisdom of your councils, sustained by 
the courage and patriotism of our people, may crown with 
triumphant success our efforts for the preservation of our liber- 
ties. But if, in the inscrutable purposes of an all-wise Provi- 
dence, it should be otherwise decreed, let us be prepared to do 
our duty in every emergency. 

If assailed by violence from abroad, and deserted by those 
to whom she has a right to look for support, our beloved State 
is to be "humbled in dust and ashes," before the footstool of 
the oppressor, we shall not rejoice in her humiliation — nor 
join in the exultation of her enemies — but in adversity, as in 
prosperity, in weal and in woe, "through good report and evil 
report," we will go for South Carolina. 

And now. fellow-citizens, offering up my most fervent 
prayers to Him in whose hands are the destinies of nations, that 
He will prosper all your measures, and have your whole country 
in His holy keeping, I am ready, in the solemn form prescribed 
by the Constitution, to dedicate myself to the service of the 
State. 

ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 



READY FOR DUTY. • 

DAFFY-DOWN-DILLY came up in the cold. 
Through the brown mould; 
Although the March breezes blew keen on her face, 
Although the white snow lay in many a place. 



266 READING AND ORATORY. 

Daffy-down-dilly had heard underground 

The swift rushing sound 
Of the streams, as they burst off their white winter chains, 
Of the whistUng Spring winds, and the pattering rains. 

"Now then," thought Daffy, deep down in her heart, 
"It's time I should start!" 
So she pushed her soft leaves through the hard frozen crouud. 
Quite up to the surface, and then she looked round. 

There was snow all about her — gray clouds overhead, — 

The trees all looked dead. 
Then how do you think Daffy-down-dilly felt. 
When the sun would not shine and the ice would not melt? 

"Cold weather," thought Daffy, still working away: 
"The earth's hard to-day! 
There's but a half-inch of my leaves to be seen, 
And two-thirds of that is more yellow than green! 

"I can't do much yet, but I'll do what I can, — 
It's well I began! 
For unless I can manage to lift up my head. 
The people will think that the Spring herself's dead!" 

So litde by little she brought her leaves out, 

All clustered about; 
And then her bright flowers began to unfold. 
Till Daffy stood robed in her spring green and gold. 

O Daffy-down-dilly! so brave and so true! 

I wish all were like you! 
So ready for duty in all sorts of weather, 
And holding forth courage and beauty together. 

—SOUTHERN MAGAZINE. 



READING AND ORATORY. 267 



THERE IS NO CONQUEROR BUT GOD. 

WHEN the green sward of Spring was breaking in the pres- 
ent year over hill and valley; when the tendrils of the 
vine were stretching over the deep moats, and climbing the 
ramparts, which still scar the battle-worn land; when the forest 
was again waving its green leaves over bygone scenes of conflict, 
and the flowers of May were shedding their fragrance upon the 
breeze so lately " loaded with the death-smell from fields wet with 
brothers' blood," a scene was witnessed in this land of ours over 
which the stars of the morning might have sung together. To 
the humble graves that held the dust of the brave soldiers who fell 
under the Southern Cross and under the flag of the Stars and 
Stripes came the noble sons and daughters of the conquering 
and the conquered land, and on each grave was reverently laid 
the flowery tribute which nature had woven and gentle hands 
had gleaned, to bestow upon the brave who fell before the Con- 
queror of us all. 

Oh! Statecraft, greater is this lesson than any which man 
hath writ. Oh! Builder of Empire, here is " that one touch 
of nature that makes the whole world kin." These are the things 
not named in statutes; but these are the things that make nations 
great. But yesterday the mighty North conquered the form of 
the feeble South. For more than a score of years she has not 
known wisdom; and perhaps we are not guiltless. But now the 
conquerors of the soul are moving. Faith at last begins to 
pierce with its Ithuriel spear the clouds of force, and the 
Heavens are flushed with the promise of a serene and benignant 
day. 

By many a fireside of the conquering North, where prejudice 
has darkened, hate rankled, and vindictive passion overflowed 
the intuitions of better nature, the truth is shining, kindness 
is growing, confiding faith is taking deep and sturdy root. 

In many a stricken home of the conquered South, where sore 
bereavement and aching wounds- have bowed the heart in sor- 
row, and keen resentment has stirred the blood with vengeful 



268 READING AND ORATORY. 

thought, the balm of hope is soothing pain, and quickened mag- 
nanimity is opening wide its responsive arms. 

From these the conquerors of the soul are coming — from these 
come those who honor the dead and spare the living. And 
those who have wrestled in death-grapple have now the fair 
field of a great country, and a future as grand as ever nerved 
the hand of labor, or fired the brain of ambition, or inspired the 
dreams of poesy, wherein to contend — not for the prizes of 
blood, but for the prizes of honest toil and rival generosity. 

Let the great and the good of the North and the South enter 
the lists of the grand tourney. We have failed to conquer the 
form, be it ours to strive to conquer the souls of our North- 
ern brethren, with a sublimer faith, a more gracious courage, a 
broader magnanimity. Magnanimity of the conqueror is a gen- 
erous concession; magnanimity of the conquered is an heroic 
achievement. The form of Harold was conquered at Senlac; 
but his soul lives and conquers still in the blood of our con- 
quering race. 

Standing side by side, by the bier of the honored dead, let 
North and South alike raise their eyes to the mild and gentle 
majesty of true faith; with one voice let them speak — 

Faith and Friendship Between North and South 
Forevermore! 

All hail! The conquerors of the soul are coming! " Be ye 
lifted up, O ye gates! And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting 
doors, and the King of Glory shall come in! the King of Glory 
shall come in!! " 

THERE IS NO CONQUEROR BUT GOD. 

JOHN W. DANIEL. 



THE SOUTH CLAIMS ITS RIGHTS UNDER THE 
CONSTITUTION. 

DISUNIONISM never flourished at the South. It is not the 
atmosphere for revolutions. The nature and occupation of 
our people demand stability, not change. Sedentary and agricul- 



THE SOUTH CLAIMS ITS RIGHTS. 269 

tural, we cherish the homesteads and laws of our ancestors, and 
Hve among the reminiscences of the past. We claim only what 
we believe to be, and what the Supreme Court has decided to 
be, our right under the Constitution. It is sneered at as an 
abstraction, but all fundamental principles are abstractions, 
and this abstraction, in our view, and in the opinion of our op- 
ponents, is the one upon which the superstructure of slavery 
stands. We assert no claim to interfere with the concerns of 
other States. Reverence for the Republic, a filial love of its 
flag, its progress and expansion, is the prevailing feeling of the 
South. We would take up arms to defend a disputed boun- 
dary in Maine or in Oregon, or the right of fishery on the banks 
of Newfoundland. But if we can enjoy no repose in the Union, 
if one-half of the Northern people advocate the curtailment of 
our rights, with the hope of seeing our most valued resource 
perish, and the other half menace us with violence, we must 
of necessity retire from it. A brave people, with great resources 
for empire and independence, impregnable to invasion, and 
inspired by a universal sense of the moderation of their course 
and the justice of their cause, will know how to act when the 
surrender of their rights is the price of submission. 

No matter how the withdrawal of the Southern States be ac- 
complished, whether peacefully or by violence, it will be the 
saddest exodus on record, and for centuries will wail along the 
pages of history like a funeral dirge. Other great nations have 
grown old and corrupt, decayed and died. But ours, yet in its 
youth and freshness, will perish like a gallant ship, complete in 
all her appointments, driven recklessly upon the rocks, her crew 
wandering for years upon the desert strand, to return at last, 
perhaps, and gather up the fragments of the wreck as their 
only means of escape. May the God of our fathers, who 
visibly guided them in their glorious efforts for independence, 
teach us, of all sections and all parties, moderation, and inter- 
pose his merciful providence to save the Republic! 

J. F. H. CLAIBORNE. 

John F. H. Claiborne, historian of tiie Southwest, was borne at Natchez, but edu- 
cated in Virginia, and read law in the office of Gen. John A. Quitman. He served in 



270 READING AND ORATORY, 

the Mississippi Legislature and in Congress, but on account of ill health retired from 
public life and engaged in journalism in New Orleans. He has enriched Southern liter- 
ature with two historical works of marlted ability and interest ; Life and Times 0/ Gen. 
Satn Dale ^i he Mississippi Partisan, 'He^w \o\V.: i860; ixnd Li/e and Correspondence vj 
Gen. John A. Quitman, 2 vols., New York: 1S60. At present he resides at his old 
homestead near Natchez, and has nearly ready for the press A nnals of Mississippi 
and the Southwest, 2 vols. 



BURNING OF THE CAPITOL AT RALEIGH. 

IN 183 1 occurred an event of momentous consequence to the 
people of Raleigh, which caused great loss, and, according 
to tradition, came near ruining the city. This was the burning 
of the Capitol. The did State House was constructed in 1792. 
It was described as wholly without architectural beauty, an ugly 
mass of brick and mortar. It was repaired in 1822, under the 
supervision of William Nichols, an experienced architect, who 
covered its dingy walls with stucco, and rendered it more sightly 
by the addition of porticos and a dome. The form of the build- 
ing was similar to the present noble granite structure which, by 
its unpretending but stately beauty, fitly represents the solid 
virtues of North Carolina character. 

By a freak of liberality, unusual in those good old days, when 
the State never spent over $90,000 a year for all purposes, when 
taxes were six cents on the $100 value of real estate only, and 
personal property was entirely exempt, the General Assembly 
had placed in the rotunda a magnificent statue of Washington, 
of Carrara marble, by the great Canova. It was the pride and 
boast of the State. Our people remembered with peculiar 
pleasure that Lafayette had stood at its base and commended 
the beauty of the carving, and the fitness of the honor to the 
great man, under whom he had served in our War for Indepen- 
dence, and whom he regarded with a passionate and reverential 
love. 

The carelessness of an artisan, engaged in covering the 
roof, lost this great work of art to the State. On the morning 
of the 2ist of June, 1831, while the sun shone bright in the 
heavens, flames were seen issuing from the roof. The owls and 



OLD AGE AND DEATH. 271 

flying squirrels, which had built their nests among the rafters, has- 
tened through the ventilator to escape from the doomed build- 
ing, followed by thick smoke and then by bright flame. With 
no such powerful machine as the modern engine, the progress 
of the fire was unchecked. A few citizens, incited by a gallant 
little lady, Miss Betsy Geddy, who had all the spirit of her 
Revolutionary fathers, endeavored with frantic haste to remove 
the statue. But its great weight was too much for their 
strength. They were forced to witness its destruction. Forty 
years have not erased from their memories the splendors of the 
closing scene of this drama. For many minutes, like its great 
original, serene and unmoved among the fires of Monmouth or 
of Trenton, the statue stood, the central figure of numberless 
blazing torches, untouched and majestic, every lineament and 
feature, and its graceful drapery white-hot and of supernatural 
brilliancy and beauty. Then suddenly the burning timbers fell, 
and the masterpiece of Canovawas a mass of broken fragments. 

KEMP p. BATTLE. 

Kemp Pll'mmer Battle, LL. D., was born in North Carolina, December 19, 1831; 
graduated at the University of that State in 1849, and was for four years tutor therein; 
began the practice of law in Raleigh in 1854; was a member of the Convention of 1861, 
and signed the Ordinance of Secession; State Treasurer 1866-68, but was removed 
under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress. In 1876 he was elected President of his 
al/iia mater, — having been greatly instrumental in reopening and restoring to pros- 
perity that venerable institution, which had, through political misrule, been closed for 
several years. 



OLD AGE AND DEATH. 

EVERYTHING," it has been said, "has its use; life to 
teach us the contempt of death, and death the contempt 
of life." But neither life nor death are to be contemned. It 
is the part of a noble and generous spirit to bear patiently the 
sorrows and crosses of life, and see with equanimity the coming 
of death. She has, it has been said, " two aspects, dreary and 
sorrowful to those whose lives prosperity makes pleasant; mild, 
if not genial, to those of adverse fortune. Her countenance is 



272 READING AND ORATORY. 

old to the young, and youthful to the aged; to the former her 
voice is inopportune, her gait terrific; she approaches the latter 
like a bedside friend, and in a whisper invites them to rest." 

As they have grown older, they have more and more in mem- 
ory and dreams gone back to the scenes that were familiar to 
them in their youthhood and their childhood. They walk 
under the old trees, they wander through the old houses, they 
go slowly again, with the one then dearer than all the world, 
along the old lanes. Those known by them long ago come 
oftener to them in their dreams. They kiss more often now, 
when they begin to forget the things of yesterday, the lips that 
long, long ago death made as white and cold as marble. 
Again they clasp the hands of the old friends whose faces 
they see when waking and when asleep, in the dusk of evening, 
in the broad light of noonday, in the silent watches of the 
night. 

For the day is close at hand when the great change shall 
come, and through the dark gates we too shall enter into the 
unknown life. Death, as the sands of life fall, as the clock 
ticks, and the heart-beating counts the remaining moments of 
life, with the same regular step, with a calm and grave tran- 
quillity, comes towards us all, to open for us, with friendly 
hand, the dread portals of eternity; and with him come the 
friends, and those dearer than friends, loved long ago, to meet 
and welcome us. 

And when the gates, closing behind us, shut out the sound of 
all the turmoil and clamorous wrangling of all this world of 
earthly life, and we find a refuge from its cares, and ills, and 
sorrows, we shall wonder that we were loth to die, and that we 
lamented for those who went thither before us, because they 
died too soon. 

ALBERT PIKE. 



READING AND ORATORY. 2/3 



LAND OF THE SOUTH. 

I. 

LAND of the South! — imperial land! — 
-/ How proud thy mountains rise! — 
How sweet thy scenes on every hand! 

How fair thy covering skies! 
But not for this, — oh, not for these, 

I love thy fields to roam, — 
Thou hast a dearer spell to me, — 
Thou art my native home! 

II. 
Thy rivers roll their liquid wealth, 

Unequalled, to the sea, — 
Thy hill and valleys bloom with health, 

And green with verdure be! 
But, not for thy proud ocean streams, 

Not for thine azure dome, — 
Sweet, sunny South! — I cling to thee, — 

Thou art my native home! 

III. 
I've stood beneath Italia's clime, 

Beloved of tale and and song, — 
On Helvyn's hills, proud and sublime, 

Where nature's wonders throng; 
By Tempe's classic sunlit streams, 

Where gods, of old, did roam, — 
But ne'er have found so fair a land 

As thou — my native home! 

IV. 

And thou hast prouder glories, too. 

Than Nature ever gave, — 
Peace sheds o'er thee her genial dew, 

And Freedom's pinions wave, — 



2/4 READING AND ORATORY. 

Fair science flings her pearls around, 

Religion lifts her dome, — 
These, these endear thee to my heart, — 

My own loved native home! 

V. 

And ''heaven's best gift to man" is thine, — 

God bless thy rosy girls! — 
Like sylvan flowers they sweetly shine, — 

Their hearts are pure as pearls! 
And grace and goodness circle them. 

Where'er their footsteps roam, — 
How can I then, whilst loving them, 

Not love my native home! 

VI. 

Land of the South! — imperial land! — 

Then here's a health to thee, — 
Long as thy mountain barriers stand. 

May'st thou be blest and free! — 
May dark dissension's banner ne'er 

Wave o'er thy fertile loam, — 
But should it come, there's one will die. 

To save his native home! 



A. B. MEEK. 



PROSECUTION OF SATANTA AND BIG TREE. 

THIS novel and important trial has, perhaps, no precedent 
in the history of American criminal jurisprudence. The 
remarkable character of the prisoners, who are leading repre- 
sentatives of their race; their crude and barbarous appearance; 
the gravity of the charge; the soul-harrowing spectacle of their 
butchered victims — seven brave-hearted men, cut off in the 
prime of lusty manhood, mutilated beyond hope of recognition, 
and lying 

"Stark and stiff, 
Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies;" 



& 



PROSECUTION OF SATANTA AND BIG TREE. 2/5 

this vast sea of faces, including gentlemen of civic and mili- 
tary distinction, the matron and the maiden, the gray-haired 
sire and the immature youth, who have come hither to witness 
the triumph of law and justice over barbarity and assassination, 
or have been attracted by the novelty of the occasion; — all con- 
spire to surround this case with thrilling and extraordinary 
interest. 

And who are the prisoners? Satanta, the veteran council- 
chief — the counsellor of his tribe — the pulse of his race; and 
Big Tree, the young war-chief who leads in the thickest of the 
fight and follows no one in the chase — the mighty warrior ath- 
lete, with the speed of the deer and the eye of the eagle, — 
are before this bar, in the charge of the law! 

So they would be described by those who, living in more se- 
cure and favored lands — remote from the frontier and beyond 
the dread sound of the war-whoop — and reading the story of 
Pocahontas and the speech of Logan the Mingo, view the 
Indian through the glamour of that enchantment which distance 
lends to the imagination. We who see them to-day disrobed of 
all their fancied graces, and exposed to the light of reality, be- 
hold them through far different lenses. We recognize in Satanta 
the arch-fiend of treachery and blood — the cunning Cataline — 
the breaker of treaties signed by his own hand — the inciter of 
his fellows to rapine and murder — the artful dealer in bravado 
while in the pcmi-wozc, and the most abject coward in the field, 
as well as the most canting and double-tongued hypocrite when 
detected and overcome. In Big Tree we see the tiger-demon, 
who has tasted blood and loves it as his food — who stops at no 
crime, howsoever black — swift to practise every species of fe- 
rocity, and pitiless at sight of agony and death — scalping, man- 
gling, burning his victims with all the superlatives of cruelty, 
without sympathy and without remorse. They are both hideous 
and loathsome in appearance, and we look in vain to see in them 
anything to be admired or even endured. 

And yet these rough sons of the wood have been commis- 
erated; the measures of the poet and the pen of romance have 
been invoked to grace "the melancholy story of their wrongs." 



276 READING AND ORATORY. 

Powerful legislative influences have been brought to bear to 
procure for them annuities, reservations, and supplies. Federal 
munificence has fostered and nourished them, fed and clothed 
them. Treaties have been solemnly made with them, wherein 
they have been considered as quasi nationalities. Immense 
financial " rings" have owed their origin and vitality to the 
"Indian Question"; and unblushing corruption has stalked 
abroad, created and kept alive by it. 

Mistaken sympathy for these vile creatures has kindled the 
flames around the cabin of the pioneer and despoiled him of 
his hard earnings, murdered and scalped our people, and carried 
off our women into captivity worse than death. For many 
years predatory bands of these "pets of the Government" have 
waged the most relentless warfare on our borders. We have 
cried aloud for help, but deaf ears have been turned to our cries, 
and the story of our sufferings discredited. Had it not been 
for the most opportune journey of General Sherman through 
this section, and his personal observation of the ensanguined 
corses of the murdered teamsters, and the entire evidences of 
this dire tragedy, it may well be doubted whether these brutes 
in human shape would ever have been brought to trial; for it 
is a well-known fact in Texas that stolen property has been 
traced to the very doors of the Reservations, and there iden- 
tified to no purpose. 

It speaks well for the humanity of our laws and the toler- 
ance of this people that the prisoners are permitted to be tried 
in this Christian land and by this Christian tribunal. The 
learned Court has in all things required the observance of the 
same rules of procedure — the same principles of evidence — the 
same judicial methods, from the presentment of the indictment 
down to the charge soon to be given by his Honor — that are 
enforced in the trial of a white man. You, gentlemen of the 
jury, have sworn that you can and will render a fair and impar- 
tial verdict. Were we to practise lex talionis, no right of trial 
by jury would be allowed these monsters; on the contrary, as 
they have treated their victims, so would it be measured unto 
them. 



SATANTA S DEFE^XE. 277 

The same amount and character of evidence as that just ad- 
duced in this court would be sufficient to convict any white 
man. "By their own words let them be condemned." Their 
conviction and punishment, it is true, cannot repair the loss nor 
avenge the blood of the good men they have slain; still, it is 
due to law, and justice, and humanity, that they should receive 
the highest penalty. That is even too mild and humane for them. 
Pillage and bloodthirstiness were the motors of this diabolical 
deed; fondness for torture and intoxication of delight at human 
agony impelled its perpetration. All the elements of murder 
in the first degree are found in the case; the jurisdiction of the 
court is complete; and the State of Texas expects from you, 
gentlemen of the jury, a verdict and judgment in accordance 
with the law and the evidence, 

S. W. T. LANHAM. 



SATANTA'S DEFENCE. 

[The Kiowa Chiefs, Satanta and Big Tree, were tried at Jacksboro, Texas, in 
July, 1871, convicted and sentenced to be hung, for the massacre of seven frontiersmen. 
'• Me big chief, brave warrior — not afraid to die — die now — shoot;" grunted Big Tree, 
striking his breast with his hand. Satanta, in handcuffs, made the following defence, 
delivered — semi-signal, semi-oral — in the Comanche dialect. The sentence was after- 
wards commuted to imprisonment for life in the State penitentiary. This is the first and 
only Indian trial on record in the State. S. W. T. Lanham, as Pistrict-Attorney, con- 
ducted the prosecution.] 

I CANNOT speak with these things upon my wrists — I am a 
squaw. I have never been so near the Texans before. I look 
around me and see your braves, your squaws and pappooses: 
and I have said in my heart, if I can ever get back to my peo- 
ple, I will never make war upon you again. I have always 
been the friend of the white man— ever since I was so high. 
My tribe have taunted me and called me a squaw, because I 
have been the friend of the Texans. I am suffering now for 
the crimes of bad Indians— Satank, and Lone Wolf, and Kick- 
ing Bird, and Big Bow, and Fast Bear, and Eagle Heart— and 
if you will let me go to my people I will kill the last three with 
my own hand. I did not kill the Texans — I came down to 



2/8 READING AND ORATORY. 

Pease River as a big medicine-man, to doctor the wounds of 
the braves, i am a big chief among the red men and have great 
influence with the warriors of my tribe — they know my voice, 
and will listen to my words. If you will let me go back to my 
people, I will withdraw my warriors from Texas; I will take 
them all across Red River, and that shall be the line between 
us and the palefaces. I will wash out all the spots of blood, 
and make it a white land; and there shall be peace, so that the 
Texans may plough and drive their oxen to the bank of the 
river. But if you kill me, it will be like a spark in the prairie 
grass — make big fire, burn heap! 



PROSPERITY OF THE UNION UNDER VIR- 
GINIA'S INFLUENCE. 

VIRGINIA has ever sustained what was free in thought, in 
trade and in action, and when the national Government 
was most under her influence, its people were most thriving 
and prosperous. It was under that influence that the growth 
of our country was most rapid and satisfactory. Every inter- 
est prospered — the agricultural, the manufacturing, whose 
foreign exports were increasing, and the navigating, which was 
fairly rivalling that of Great Britain itself. Commerce and 
wealth, peace and power, union and fraternal respect, united to 
present a picture to the world which attracted its respect and 
admiration, and was fast becoming a model for imitation. 

And how is it now? All the great public interests are deeply 
depressed, sectional heats and disagreements prevail, discon- 
tents exist amongst those interests which are conscious of 
being taxed for the benefit of others that are no more entitled 
to special public favor than themselves. The great shipping 
interest of the Union is now thoroughly depressed. There is 
no law, it is true, which enacts that, if American ships engage 
in foreign commerce on the high seas, they shall be treated as 
pirates; but if there were such a law in force, the exclusion of 



DIFFICULTIES ESSENTIAL TO EDUCATION. 279 

our shipping from foreign commerce could scarcely be more 
complete than it is. Was such a state of things ever even pos- 
sible when the country was governed according to Virginia 
views and principles? 

We owe it to self-respect, to our country, and the cause of 
mankind, to stand by the truth, and not suffer it to be destroyed 
or obscured by selfish interests which disparage them, because 
they may have been developed and maintained by our fathers, 
or because they interposed an insuperable obstacle to fraud and 
peculation. We must not suffer public opinion to be degraded 
or contaminated for purposes of plunder or oppression, but cul- 
tivate the spirit of truth and justice for our own protection and 
the benefit of mankind. To do that, we must cultivate and 
cherish this grand Southern school, and make its teachings a 
light to guide the footsteps of coming generations. Above all, 
let .us make it a place for the reunion of Southern youth, where 
they may find a kindly sympathy, principles laid down in the 
interest of truth and justice, and nothing unfriendly to their 
self-respect. Let this be the last, and I had like to have said, 
the greatest contribution of Virginia to the cause of peace and 
union, power, and just government. 

R. M. T. HUNTER. 

Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, the statesman, was born in Essex Co., Va., 
April 21, 1809; graduated at tlie University of Virginia, and studied law. He was a 
member of the General Assembly of Virginia in 1833; elected Representative to Congress 
in 1837, and Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1839; he opposed the National 
Bank, and the protective policy of Mr. Clay, being ever an advocate of free trade. He 
was in the U. S. Senate from 1847 to 1861, and was one of the most influential members 
of that body. He was Secretary of Stote of the Southern Confederacy, 1861-62; and 
Confederate States Senator, 1862-65. He is now (1878) Treasurer of Virginia. 



DIFFICULTIES ESSENTIAL TO COMPLETE 
EDUCATION. 

WE are prone to regard difficulties as misfortunes; we la- 
ment their existence and deprecate their recurrence. But 
how short-sighted is all this! We overlook the fact that these 



28o READING AND ORATORY. 

very difficulties are essential to our education — no curriculum 
can supply their place. 

Let us borrow one of Paul's military figures by way of illus- 
tration. How do you make a man a soldier? Is it by tasking 
him with studies in military tactics? Is it by reading accounts 
of long and brilliant campaigns, Avith their marches, battles, and 
sieges? Is it even by sending him to a military school, to learn 
the drill and evolutions of the army? — Is that the way you 
make a man a soldier? Is that the way you form in him 
habits of coolness, courage, caution, endurance, and dar- 
ing? No! You thrust him into the tented field — you drive him 
night and day on long, hard marches through mud and rain, 
half-fed and half-clad — you place him in front of the enemy — 
you make him a picket-target for trusty riflemen and sharp- 
shooters — you rush him into the " imminent deadly breach," 
till the very thunder of artillery is music — till he mocketh at 
fear and is not affrighted, and saith Ha! Ha! among the trum- 
pets. 

So, those very obstacles at which we complain, if properly 
met, give robustness and vigor to high resolve and noble pur- 
pose. Let us, then, fling them a defiant challenge; let us meet 
them with the invincible spirit of him who burnt his ships behind 
him, thus rendering all retreat impossible. 

W. M. GRIER. 



MY CASTLE. 



They do not know who sneer at me because I'm poor and lame. 
And round my brow has never twined the laurel wreath of 

fame — 
They do not know that I possess a castle old and grand, 
With many an acre broad attached of fair and fertile land; 
With hills and dales, and lakes and streams, and fields of waving 

grain, 
And snowy flocks, and lowing herds, that browse upon the 

plain. 



MY CASTLE. 28 1 

In sooth, it is a good demesne — howwould my scorners stare, 
Could they behold the splendors of my Castle in the Air! 

The room in which I'm sitting now is smoky, bare, and cold, 
But I have gorgeous, stately chambers in my palace old. 
Rich paintings, by the grand old masters, hang upon the wall, 
And marble busts and statues stand around the spacious hall. 
A chandelier of silver pure, and golden lamps illume, 
With rosy lights, on festal nights, the great reception-room, 
When wisdom, genius, beauty, wit, are all assembled there, 
And strains of sweetest music fill my Castle in the Air. 

About the castle grounds ten thousand kinds of flowers bloom. 
And freight each passing zephyr with a load of sweet perfume. 
Thick clumps of green umbrageous trees afford a cool retreat, 
Where oft I steal me, when the sun pours down his scorching 

heat. 
And there, upon a mossy bank, recline the livelong day, 
And watch the murmuring fountains in their marble basin 

play; 
Or listen to the song of birds, with plumage bright and rare. 
Which flit among the trees around my Castle in the Air. 

Sometimes the mistress of my castle sits beside me there, 
With dark-blue eyes so full of love, and sunny silken hair. 
With broad, fair, classic brow, where genius sheds his purest 

ray. 
And little dimpled rosy mouth, where smiles forever play. 
Ah! she is very dear to me; her maiden heart alone 
Returned my soul's deep love, and beat responsive to my own; 
And I chose her for my spirit-bride — this maiden young and 

fair, 
And now she reigns sole mistress of my Castle in the Air. 

The banks may break, and stocks may fall, the Croesus of to-day 
May see, to-morrow, all his wealth, like snow, dissolve away. 
And th' auctioneer, at panic price, to the highest bidder sell 
His marble home, in which a king might well be proud to 
dwell. 



282 READING AND ORATORY. 

But in my castle in the air I have a sure estate, 
No panic, with its hydra-head, can e'er depreciate. 
No hard-faced sheriff dares to levy execution there, 
For universal law exempts a Castle in the Air. 

S. NEWTON BERRYHILL. 



LETTER TO JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE. 

I AM not ashamed to confess the depth of my love for my 
whole country, and the mingled sorrow and indignation with 
which I witness every attempt to weaken amongst the people 
the sense of what we owe to the mother of us all. No people 
ever did anything glorious, who did not believe in God, who 
were not faithful to oaths, and who did not love their country. 
When I reflect on what God has already done for us, and al- 
ready done by us for His own glory and for the advancement of 
the human race; when I consider what our position and our 
influence amongst the nations of the earth must be when we 
become a hundred millions; when I try to appreciate the ne- 
cessity of just such a power on earth, and the majesty of its 
beneficent and irresistible exercise; my very heart throbs with 
overpowering joy and exultation, that such a destiny is reserved 
for my people, that such a refuge and inheritance is kept in 
store for man. 

I thank God continually that the dust of my ancestors 
mingles with this soil; that the hands of my kindred have la- 
bored on these sublime monuments; that the valor of my 
friends was part of the cost by which all has been secured; and 
that the lot of the inheritance of my posterity appertains to such 
a land and such a people. As for the South, taken in its widest 
sense, God has cast my lot there, and I have been loyal to her; 
all the more loyal that I have been neither blind to her errors, 
nor ignorant of her perils. As for Kentucky, if I have left un- 
done anything I could have done for her honor, her interest, 
or her glory, she knows how joyfully I would redeem that lack 
of service. But still I love my country; still I am an American 



BENNY. 283 

citizen; and I deny, with uplifted hands, the right of any Court, 
any President, any Congress, any State, any combination of 
States under heaven, to aboHsh from amongst men that highest 
of all human titles. I have worn it as a crown all my days on 
earth. And I implore you by our common blood and common 
name, by all the love so many noble hearts bear for you, and 
all the hopes they cherish concerning you, so to quit yourself 
in this day of trial and rebuke, that you shall bear that title 
proudly, long after my gray hairs are under the green sod. 

RO. J. BRECKINRIDGE. 



BENNY. 



I HAD told him Christmas morning, 
As he sat upon my knee. 
Holding fast his little stockings, 

Stuffed as full as full could be, 
And attentive listening to me. 

With a face demure and mild. 
That good Santa Claus, who filled them, 
Does not love a naughty child. 

'But we'll be good, won't we, Moder.?" 

And from off my lap he slid, 
Digging deep among the goodies 

In his crimson stockings hid, 
While I turned me to my table 

Where a tempting goblet stood. 
Brimming high with dainty egg-nog ^ 

Sent me by a neighbor good. 

But the kitten, there before me. 

With his white paw, nothing loth, 
Sat, by way of entertainment. 

Slapping off the shining froth; 
And in not the gentlest humor 

At the loss of such a treat, 



284 READING AND ORATORY. 

I confess I rather rudely 

Thrust him out into the street. 

Then how Benny's blue eyes kindled! 

Gathering up the precious store, 
He had busily been pouring 

In his tiny pinafore, 
With a generous look that shamed me, 

Sprang he from the carpet bright. 
Showing, by his mien indignant, 

All a baby's sense of right. 

"Come back, Harney!" called he loudly, 

As he held his apron white, 
"You sail have my candy wabbit!" 
But the door was fastened tight; 
So he stood abashed and silent 

In the centre of the floor. 
With defeated look alternate 
Bent on me and on the door. 

Then as by some sudden impulse 

Quickly ran he to the fire, 
And while eagerly his bright eyes 

Watched the flames go high and higher. 
In a brave, clear key he shouted 

Like some lordly little elf, 
"Santa Caus! Come down de chimney, 

Make my Moder 'have herself!" 

"I will be a good girl, Benny," 

Said I, feeling the reproof; 
And straightway recalled poor Harney, 

Mewing on the gallery-roof. 
Soon the anger was forgotten. 

Laughter chased away the frown. 
And they played beneath the live-oaks 

Till the dusky night came down. 



DEFENCE BEFORE THE HOUSE. 285 

In my dim fire-lighted chamber 

Harney purred beneath my chair, 
And my play-worn boy beside me 

Knelt to say his evening prayer: 
' God bess Fader — God bess Moder — 

God bess Sister — " then a pause, 
And the sweet young lips devoutly 

Murmured — " God bess Santa Cans!" 

He is sleeping — brown and silken 

Lie the lashes long and meek 
Like caressing, clinging shadows 

On his plump and peachy cheek; 
And I bend above him, weeping 

Thankful tears, O Undefiled! 
For a woman's crown of glory. 

For the blessing of a child. 

MRS. CHAMBERS KETCH UM. 



DEFENCE BEFORE THE HOUSE OF REPRE- 
SENTATIVES. 

SIR, if injury has been done to the privileges of this House 
— which I deny — does it not become the House to consider 
whether, in correcting one wrong, another may not spring up 
of far greater and overshadowing magnitude? In the discussion 
which preceded my arrest, my character was gratuitously and 
wantonly assailed. It was suggested, as an argument for the 
arrest, that I had probably fled like a ruffian, a renegade, and a 
blackguard; and that minutes might be of vast importance. 

To those gentlemen who could advance such an opinion, I 
say that they knew little about me. I never avoided responsi- 
bility. I have perilled some little in the protection of Ameri- 
can citizens — have perilled life and blood to protect the hearths of 
my fellow-citizens — and they little know me who could imagine 



286 READING AND ORATORY. 

that I would flee from the charge of crime that was imputed to 
me. At all events, they will learn that for once I have not 
proved recreant. I have not eschewed responsibility — I have 
not sought refuge in flight. Never! never! shall that brand 
attach itself to my name. 

Would it not have been strange that I should seek to dis- 
honor my country through her representatives, when I have 
ever been found ready, at her call, to do and suffer in her ser- 
vice? Yes. And I trust that while living upon this earth I shall 
ever be found ready, at her call, to vindicate the wrongs inflicted 
upon her in collective capacity, or upon her citizens in their 
personal rights — and to resent my own personal wrongs. What- 
ever gentlemen may have imagined, so long as that proud em- 
blem of my country's liberties, with its stripes and its stars, 
shall wave in this Hall of American legislators, so long shall it 
cast its sacred protection over the personal rights of every 
American citizen. 

Sir, when you shall have destroyed the pride of American 
character, you will have destroyed the brightest jewel that 
Heaven ever made; you will have drained the purest and the holi- 
est drop which visits the heart of your sages in council, and 
your heroes in the field; you will have annihilated the princi- 
ple that must sustain that emblem of the nation's glory and 
elevate it above your own exalted seat. These massive col- 
umns, with yonder lofty dome, shall sink into one crumbling 
ruin. Yes, sir, though corruption may have done something, 
and luxury may have added her seductive powers in endanger- 
ing the perpetuity of our nation's fair fame, it is these privileges 
which still induce every American citizen to cling to the insti- 
tutions of his country, and to look to the assembled represen- 
tatives of his native land as their best and only safeguard. 

But, sir, so long as that flag shall bear aloft its glittering 
stars — bearing them amidst the din of battle, and waving them 
triumphantly above the storms of the ocean, — so long, I trust, 
shall the rights of American citizens be preserved safe and 
unimpaired, and transmitted as a sacred legacy from one genera- 
tion to another, till discord shall wreck the spheres— the grand 



THE UNITY OF TEXAS. 28/ 

march of time shall cease — and not one fragment of all creation 
be left to chafe on the bosom of eternity's wave. 

SAM HOUSTON. 

Sam Houston was born in Rockbridge Co., Va., March 2, 1793; at the age of thirteen 
he lost his father, and his mother then removed witli her family to Tennessee, where 
young Sam spent much of his time with the Cherokee Indians — to whom he was ever 
afterwards greatly attached — and was adopted into the family of the famous chief, 
Bowles he served in the War of 1812, and against the Creek Indians, winning the 
special notice and regard of Gen. Jackson, who in 1817 procured his appointment to the 
agency ot the Cherokees. He was admitted to the bar at Nashville in i8i8, and at 
once entered upon a public career of unprecedented success, being appointed soon 
after .\diutant-General of the State, and elected Major-General of Militia in 1821, 
Member ot Congress in 1823, and Governor ot Tennessee in 1827. In 1829 he 
married but in three months a separation ensued— for reasons never made pub- 
lic — and leaving wife, office, and civilization behind him, he sought once more the tent 
o: his adopted Indian father, now in the wilds of Arkansas, and, assuming the dress 
and habits of the Cherokees, identified himself with the tribe until 1832, when, under 
secret instructions from President Jackson he came to Texas. On this new scene of 
action his career was no less remarkable we find him in 1833 a member of the San 
Filepe Convention, of the Consultation in 1835, and of the Convention which declared 
Independence in 1836, by the last body he was elected Commander-in-chief of the 
Texan forces, and on the 21st of April, 1836, he fought and won the battle of San 
jacinto which secured the independence of Texas. He was elected in the fall of 1836 
President ot the Republic of Texas,— and again in 1841; after annexation he became 
U. S. Senator, and served as such until 1859, when he was elected Governor of Texas. 
He opposed secession for which he was removed from office in March, 1861: died in 1863. 



THE UNITY OF TEXAS. 

FATHERS of Texas, it is true your labors have been severe 
and your sacrifices many, but, like all parents, you must 
watch until the end. You and all of her children have a sacred 
duty to perform, that must not be forgotten, that must be con- 
tinuously and unceasingly cherished — to preserve, in ,its unity, 
our beloi'ed Texas. 

Texas, Texas! — sound it, think of it, where does it lead the 
mind.? Between the Colorado and Trinity? Between the 
Trinity and Sabine? Between the Colorado and Rio Grande? 
Between a tier of counties on the south, and Red River and 
Staked Plain on the north? No! Texans. The Texan heart 



288 READING AND ORATORY. 

leaps over all these narrow spaces; and everywhere within its 
broad, united limits, worships at the same Texan altar of patri- 
otism. The soil of Rio Grande has drunk the blood of the 
sons of Sabine; Red River has made her offerings on the 
coast; and the coast has her bleached skeletons on the arid 
plains of the north. Texas has but one 2d of March, but 
one Alamo, but one Goliad, but one San Jacinto. She has but 
one Lone Star. Every point of that star must remain, for 
when you take them away the star is gone. Who will put out 
this glorious luminary? What mercenary with soul so dead as 
to barter it away? We plead for the unity of Texas, as Ca- 
millus pleaded for one Rome! 

United, where is the State that ultimately can compete with 
Texas? How vast will be her resources, how light her taxes! 
Where we count dollars levied as tax now, we will count mills 
then; and yet how ample will be our revenues! How potent 
will be our efforts; — when we stretch forth our arm, it will be 
mighty: when we raise our voice in council, all will be hushed 
to listen! 

Our seaboard will have its coronet clustering around a queen 
of pearls. Our interior will have our Lowells, and Manches- 
ters, and Pittsburgs. Our railroads, subordinated to just laws 
and the interests of the public — the servants, and not the mas- 
ters of the people — will bind our extended parts together in 
social and mercantile intercourse, preserving confidence, com- 
munity of interest, and patriotic affection. Our institutions of 
learning, benevolence, and religion will all rise higher and 
tower loftier, because of the ample resources and great name 
of our mighty State. Nothing little will live here — ideas, 
thoughts, feelings, all will be great, because of the association 
of greatness. 

On the other hand divide, and the fragments, with their 
contracted limits, will be common. Each State, with its bur- 
den of taxes, and its comparative insignificance of position 
and influence at home and abroad, because partaking of 
mediocrity, will be small. And more — grievous the thought! 
— Texas will be Texas no longer. Our glorious past will be 



JOAN OF ARC AND THE TAX ON DOMREMV. 289 

left to history only, and no longer exist in the hearts of a 
living people 

Then raise your voice with mine, that Texas a unit shall be 
forever — forever shall be united! 

GUY M. BRYAN. 



JOAN OF ARC AND THE TAX ON DOMREMY. 

THERE have been some trials in this world of ours, when 
Guilt, with furtive eye, has sat and trembled on the 
ermined seat, and when Innocence and Purity have looked out, 
like angels, from the criminal's box. In this trial at Rouen, to 
find the offender against laws human and Divine, we must not 
look down upon that holy child on whom so many eyes are 
fixed, but we must carry our gaze upward, upon that dais, 
from which leers Beauvais with his crafty smile, and from which 
blaze the crimsoned trappings of Beaufort! 

The execution of Joan could not retrieve the fortunes of the 
English arms; and though the war continued for some years, 
her character and the memory of her services had taken too 
deep a root in France to permit the English to maintain their 
conquests. The original claim of the King of England to the 
French throne had had no basis in justice; and it was right 
that it should receive a most stunning rebuke at the hands of 
an aroused people, but most strange was it that the inspiration 
should have been given by a girl. 

Thus ended forever the long dominion of the English Kings 
in France. The population of the kingdom had decreased to a 
frightful extent — but France was free. Her noblest names had 
been brought low, and one-sixth of the males capable of bear- 
ing arms had perished on the field of battle — but France, at 
least, was free. For more than three centuries her chosen 
monarchs administered the laws of the land. They gathered the 
taxes ot every district and every town with one exception — 
thai Oi the little village which had been the birthplace of Joan 
oi Arc, and the return from this was not conveyed in lawful 



290 READING AND ORATORY. 

money of the realm, but in these simple words: Ne'ant a cause 
de la Piicelle — words which bore the weight of eminent services 
upon them, and which in their quaintness spoke eloquently of the 
gratitude of centuries. 

And why nothing on account of the maiden? Because that 
Maiden, who had drawn her first breath in this village, had 
done enough for the country to demand much of the King 
whom she had defended. But what did the Maiden ask in re- 
turn for services which his captains could not render — in return 
for the crown he wore on his head, and that sceptre he waved 
over regenerated France? Nothing for herself — no titles, no 
jewels, no coronets — baubles that might gratify the vanity of 
any country-girl — only that the village of her birth and rearing 
should be exempted forever from taxation. And Charles granted 
this modest request; and for more than three centuries the tax- 
gatherer, whose district embraced Domremy, would comprise 
the indebtedness in this one hne: 

''^Ne'ant a cause de la Pucelky 

I knoAV nothing finer, nothing more touching in history than 
this incident. It seems like a weaving into everyday life of 
recollections that partake more of the Ideal than the Real, 
Looked at historically, it was a noble proof of unselfishness on 
the part of one whose great merits could have claimed millions 
for herself — and who only claimed exemption for others. Po- 
etically regarded, we can almost fancy that, each recurring year, 
the Maiden, fresh in her purity and her innocence, would come 
more vividly through this yearly certificate before the descend- 
ants of those among whom she had been born, and whom, in 
gloomier days, she had left to take a stand in the van of armies, 
and sit at the right hand of Kings. 

One day, however, in the last quarter of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, her countrymen, drunk with the fumes of their mighty 
Revolution, and feeling a fierce joy in trampling down all an- 
cient rights, and disregarding all honored traditions, placed their 
plebeian hands upon this touching relic of a most historic age. 
The Revolution, as we all know was self-willed and headstrong, 



A DREAM OF THE SOUTH WIND. 29I 

and a trifle ignorant besides. They remembered only that it 
was a king who had granted the exemption, and forgot alto- 
gether that those to whom it had been granted were plebeians 
like themselves, and would have been Jacobins and Bonnets 
Rouges like themselves, had they had the privilege of living in 
that noble age of " Fraternity, Equality, and Liberty." 

They abolished the exemption: but behold how quick and 
sharp the retribution! Almost as though a magic and saving 
spell had been broken, and a mighty form standing unseen at the 
frontiers, and wielding a sword that flamed towards the four 
points of the compass, had been withdrawn into the recesses of 
the forest, the note of preparation was again heard upon the boun- 
daries; — the guidons and flags of victorious hosts were again 
flaunted in the eyes of humiliated France — and the victors of 
Waterloo, fresh from conflict with the Great Captain, trailed 
their swords in the streets of Paris, while Wellington framed a 
Protocol at the Louvre, and red-faced Blucher staked his 
thousands at the gaming-tables of the Capital. 

JOHN DIMITRY. 
John Dimitrv, A. M., eldest son of Prof. Alexander Dimitry, was born in Washington, 
D. C, December 31, 1835; in 1842 his parents removed to New Orleans; he obtained a 
position in the office of the Attorney-General of the United States in 1852, which he 
resigned seven years after to accompany his father, Minister to Central America, as 
Secretary of Legation. On the commencement of hostiltties he hastened to I^w 
Orleans and joined the Crescent Regimen* of Louisiana Volunteers; was seriously 
wounded at Shiloh, honorably discharged from the army, and was appointed clerk in 
the Postoffice Department at Riclimond, becoming chief clerk in 1864. He was a 
Professor in the Coiegio de Cahias, South America, from 1873 to 1876, when he returned 
to New Orleans, and has since been engaged in the important work of preparing a 
series of school Histories of the Southern States, the initial volume of which— History 
of Louisiana— has appeared and been most favorably received. 



A DREAM OF THE SOUTH WIND. 



o 



FRESH, how fresh and fair 
Through the crystal gulfs of air. 
The fairy South Wind floateth on her subtle wings of balm! 
And the green earth lapped in bliss. 
To the magic of her kiss 
Seems yearning upward fondly through the golden-crested calm! 



292 READING AND ORATORY. 

From the distant Tropic strand, 
Where the billows, bright and bland, 
Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint under- 
tune. 

From the fields of purpling flowers. 
Still wet with fragrant showers, 
The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of 
June. 

All heavenly fancies rise 

On the perfume of her sighs, 
Which steep the inmost spirit in a languor rare and fine, 

And a Peace more pure than Sleep's 

Unto dim, half-conscious deeps 
Transports me, lulled and dreaming, on its twilight tides divine. 

Those dreams! ah me! the splendor. 

So mystical and tender. 
Wherewith like soft heat-lightnings they gird their meaning 

round, 

And those waters, calling, calling. 
With a nameless charm enthralling, 
Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray of sound! 

Touch, touch me not, nor wake me. 

Lest grosser thoughts o'ertake me, 
From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars, — 

What viewless arms caress me? 

What whispered voices bless me, 
With welcomes dropping dewlike from the wierd and wondrous 
stars? 

Alas! dim, dim, and dimmer, 

Grows the preternatural glimmer 
Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings 
of balm. 

For behold! its spirit flieth, 

And its fairy murmur dieth, 
And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm! 

PAUL H. HAYNE. 



READING AND ORATORY. 293 



RESISTING PROBATE OF THE WILL OF HES- 
TER GOLDSMITH, UPON THE GROUNDS 
OF INSANITY. 

If it be true, as was said by the learned counsel who opened 
this painful discussion, quoting the language of a distinguished 
master of medical science, that ";w man is of sound mind"; nay, 
if it be true that, within the glance of the advocate's eye as he 
uttered these words, there sat two persons already marked by 
Savannah observers as the hapless victims of insanity; that 
already, all unconsciously to themselves, the deadly poison dis- 
turbs "the chemic labor of their blood," what a hope, what a 
consolation, in the fact that organized law stands prepared, with 
outstretched arms, to guard them from the appalling results of 
mere physical disease! Immaterial from what source it may 
spring; whether from hereditary taint in the blood; or from 
epileptic shocks which, as I will hereafter show, must impair and 
destroy the brain; or from the ravages of dyspepsia; or from 
the excessive use of alcohol and narcotics; or from the simple 
lapse ot the years, which enfeebles our frames, and strips our 
heads, and whitens our hairs for the grave, — any one of us, to 
use the language applied by Dr. Arnold to the woman into 
whose sad life we have been looking, may He "a. stranded hulk" 
— helpless prey for the wrecker! — unless the laws of the land, 
and not simply the law as it exists in the statute-book, but the 
law as it is enforced in the court-room, shall intervene to pro- 
tect us. 

"Stranded hulk!" said Dr. Arnold. "She seemed to be t'so- 
/atet/," said another of the witnesses. Ah! gentlemen, what an 
isolation was that! The mother of sons and of daughters, of 
children and grandchildren, severed from all who bore her 
blood! Isolation colder, darker, more productive of a shiver, 
than the isolation of the grave itself! Such isolation may be 
possible for a sane man. We maybe able to conceive of a man 
rising, in the full development of intellectual power, to the 
loftiest peaks of human ambition, and there standing amid the 



294 READING AND ORATORY. 

glaciers, "wrapt in the solitude of his own originality," like the 
great Napoleon. 

But for a woman, this is scarcely possible; for the mother of 
children, it is simply impossible. Her realm must be the realm 
of the heart ; her throne must be pillared upon the affections; 
the power of love her only sceptre — her children the only 
jewels to stud and star her diadem. Is her child deformed? 
Love encircles deformity itself with a sacred halo of glory! Is 
her child hideous? So long as a ray of light shall twinkle in its 
eye, to her it is full of a beauty almost celestial. Is her child 
scorned and despised by the world? This but causes her heart 
to grow the more tender. Is her child a criminal? Upon /^^r lips 
alone can fitly rest the words of the poet : 

" I ask not, I care not, if guilt's in that heart, 
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art!" 

Rest assured that the cold steel of insanity alone can cut the 
umbilical cord which binds the soul of the woman to the seed 
of her womb! 

HENRY R. JACKSON. 



INAUGURATION OF STONEWALL JACKSON'S 
STATUE. 

MY COUNTRYMEN: The oldest of the States has called 
together this great concourse of her sons and her daugh- 
ters, with honored, representatives of both the late contend- 
ing sections of our common country. On this day, abounding 
with stern memories of the past, and great auguries of the 
future, I come to greet you; and in the name, and by the au- 
thority of Virginia, I bid you all and each welcome, a heart- 
warm welcome, to her capital. 

With a mother's tears and love, with ceremonies to be chron- 
icled in her archives and transmitted to the latest posterity, the 
Commonwealth this day emblazons the virtues, and consecrates 
in enduring bronze the image of her mighty dead. Not for 



INAUGURATION OF JACKSON'S STATUE. 295 

herself alone, but for the sister States whose sons he led in 
war, Virginia accepts, and she will proudly preserve, the sacred 
trust now consigned to her perpetual custody. Not for the 
Southern people only, but for every citizen of whatever section 
of the American Republic, this tribute to illustrious virtue and 
genius is transmitted to the coming ages, to be cherished as it 
will be with national pride, as one of the noblest memorials of 
a common heritage of glory. Nay, in every country and for 
all mankind, Stonewall Jackson's career of unconscious hero- 
ism will go down as an inspiration, teaching the power of 
courage, and conscience, and faith, directed to the glory of 
God. As this tribute has sprung from the admiration and 
sympathy of kindred hearts in another continent; as the eyes 
of Christendom have been turned to behold the achievements 
of the man, so will the heroic life here enshrined radiate back, 
to the remotest bounds of the world, the lessons its example 
has taught. 

It speaks to our fellow-citizens of the North, and reviving 
no animosities of the bloody past, it commands their respect for 
the valor, the manhood, the integrity, and honor of the people 
of whom this Christian warrior was a representative type and 
champion. 

It speaks to our stricken brethren of the South, bringing 
back his sublime simplicity and faith, his knightly and incor- 
ruptible fidelity to each engagement of duty; and it stands an 
enduring admonition and guarantee that sooner shall the sun 
reverse its course in the heavens than his comrades and his 
compatriot people shall prove recreant to the parole and con- 
tract of honor which binds them, in the fealty of freemen, to 
the Constitution and union of the States. 

It speaks with equal voice to every portion of the reunited 
common country, warning all that impartial justice and impar- 
tial right, to the North and to the South, are the only pillars on 
which the arch of the Federal Union can securely rest. 

It represents that unbought spirit of honor which prefers 
death to degradation, and more feels a stain than a wound, 
which is the stern nurse of freemen, the avenging genius of 



296 READING AND ORATORY. 

liberty, and which teaches and proclaims that the free consent 
of the governed is at once the strength and the glory of the 
government. 

It stands forth a mute protest before the world against that 
rule of tyrants, which, wanting faith in the instincts of honor, 
would distrust and degrade a brave and proud but unfortunate 
people — which would bid them repent, in order to be forgiven, 
of such deeds and achievements as heroes rejoice to perform, 
and such as the admiration of mankind in every age has 
covered with glory. 

Let the spirit and design with which we erect this memorial 
to-day admonish our whole country that the actual recon- 
ciliation of the States must come, and, so far as honorably in us 
lies, shall come; but that its work will never be complete until 
the equal honor and equal liberties of each section shall be 
acknowledged, vindicated, and maintained by both. We 
have buried the strifes and passions of the past; we now 
perpetuate impartial honor to whom honor is due, and, stoop- 
ing to resent no criticism, we stand with composure and 
trust ready to greet every token of just and Constitutional 
pacification. 

Then let this statue endure, attesting to the world for us and 
our children, honor, homage, reverence for the heroism of our 
past, and at the same time the knightliest fidelity to the obliga- 
tions of the present and future. 

Let it endure as a symbol of the respect which both the 
sections will accord to the illustrious dead of each, signifying, 
not that either will ever be prepared to apologize to the other, 
but that, while calmly differing as to the past, neither will defile 
its record, each will assert its manhood, its rectitude, and its 
honor, and both will equally and jointly strive to consolidate 
the liberty and the peace, the strength and glory, of a common 
and indissoluble country. 

Let it endure as a perpetual expression of that world-wide 
sympathy with true greatness which prompted so noble a gift 
from Great Britain to Virginia; and let its preservation attest the 
gratitude of the CommonAvealth to those great-hearted gentle- 



THE SHADE OF THE TREES. 297 

men of England who originated and procured it as a tribute to 
the memory of her son. 

Let this statue stand, with its mute eloquence, to inspire our 
children with patriotic fervor, and to maintain the prolific power 
of the Commonwealth in bringing forth men as of old. Let 
Virginia, beholding her past in the light of this event, take heart 
and rejoice in her future. Mother of States, and sages, and 
heroes! bowed in sorrow, with bosom bruised and wounded, 
with garments rent and rolled in blood, arise and dash away all 
tears! No stain dims your glittering escutcheon! Let your 
brow be lifted up with the glad consciousness of unbroken pride 
and unsullied honor! Demand and resume complete possession 
of your ancient place in the sisterhood of States; and go for- 
ward to the great destiny which, in virtue of the older and later 
days, belongs to the co-sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia. 

It is in no spirit of mourning, it is with the stern joy and 
pride befitting this day of heroic memories, that I inaugurate 
these ceremonies in the name of the people. 

JAMES L. KEMPER. 

James L. Kemper, soldier and statesman, was born and reared on an old Virginia Pied- 
mont plantation; was graduated A. M. at Washington College (now Washington and 
Lee University); adopted law as his profession, and was elected for ten years to the 
Virginia Legislature, and a part of the time Speaker of the House of Delegates; was 
President of the Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Institute. He entered the war 
as Colonel of |the 7th Virginia Infantry, and by successive promotions became Major- 
General, serving with the Army of Northern Virginia in nearly all its battles until at 
Gettysburg he was desperately wounded and crippled for life. In 1871 he was Presi- 
dential elector for the State at large on the Conservative ticket; and Governor of 
Virginia from 1874 to 1878. 



THE SHADE OF THE TREES. 

WHAT are the thoughts that are stirring his breast? 
What is the mystical vision he sees? 
— "Zr/ lis pass over the river and rest 

Under the shade of the trees''* 



* Stonewall Jackson's last words. 



298 READING AND ORATORY. 

Has he grown sick of his toils and his tasks? 

Sighs the worn spirit for respite or ease? 
Is it a moment's cool halt that he asks 
Under the shade of the trees? 

Is it the gurgle of waters whose flow 

Ofttime has come to him, borne on the breeze. 
Memory listens to, lapsing so low, 

Under the shade of the trees? 

Nay — though the rasp of the flesh was so sore, 

Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these, 
Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore, 
Under the shade of the trees; — 

Caught the high psalms of ecstatic delight, — 

Heard the harps harping, like soundings of seas, — 
Watched earth's assoiled ones walking in white 
Under the shade of the trees? 

O, was it strange he should pine for release, 

Touched to the soul with such transports as these, — 
He who so needed the balsam of peace, 
Under the shade of the trees. 

Yea, it was noblest for him — it was best, 

(Questioning naught of our Father's decrees,) 
There to pass over the river and rest 
Under the shade of the trees! 

MARGARET J. PRSSTON. 



"SOUTHERN CHIVALRY." 

FREQUENT allusions have been made in this debate to what 
Senators are pleased to call "Southern Chivalry," in terms of 
derision and reproach. I shall not discuss with Senators the 
propriety of their criticisms. That is a question of taste, about 



"SOUTHERN CHIVALRY." 299 

which we may well differ. I trust sincerely that the day is not 
far distant when a just corrective of a custom I do not defend, 
and which has been greatly abused, shall be found in an en- 
lightened Christian ])ublic sentiment. To that humane arbitra- 
ment I hope always to be able to defer. But, sir, to whatever 
tribunal I shall feel called upon to refer that responsibility, 
which seems in some quarters to give so much offence'',~I trust I 
shall be scrupulously careful to observe in all controversies 
every law of courtesy and kindness, and never so far to forget 
what is due to myself and equally due to others as to substitute 
in intellectual combat for the parliamentary weapons of reason 
and argument the use of opprobrious epithets, harsh aspersions, 
violent crimination and recrimination. I shall leave such means 
of warfare to be employed by those to whose tastes and senti- 
ments they are more compatible. While I should regard them 
as the feeblest instruments of assault upon the position of others, 
I should certainly feel that they were the weakest armor for my 
own character or honor. Holding myself strictly accountable 
for all that I may utter in this Chamber or elsewhere, I shall 
not dispute with any champion the laurels that are to be won 
on the field of personal or partisan abuse. Those who are am- 
bitious of that palm may wear it. 

But if by these references to "Southern Chivalry," Senators in- 
tend to impute to the people of the South any want of those 
high qualities of honor, virtue, truth, courage, and dignity of 
character which have been asserted to belong to them or the 
absence of those gentle humanities of charity, courtesy, gen- 
erosity, and all the graces of Christian life, I meet the Senators 
on the threshold of their accusation, and I tell them before the 
world that this impeachment of the character of our people is 
groundless and injurious; as unjust to those who make it as it 
is to the brave, honest, noble people who are thus misunder- 
stood, misrepresented, and defamed. I repel the aspersion with 
the mdignant scorn of an injured and outraged people. I 
repel it in the name of eight millions of living, virtuous freemen; 
repel it in the name of twelve generations of (jallant patriots! 
I protest against it by the solemn judgment of history; I refute 



300 READING AND ORATORY. 

it by the character of the living and the dead; I appeal from it 
in its error and madness to the universal and concurrent testi- 
mony of mankind; I hurl it to the ground; I trample it in the 
dust There is not an event in the nation's annals connected 
with the South that does not condemn and rebuke the odious 
sentiment. It can find no habitation of sympathy in the heart 
of the civilized world; it can find no lodgement in one solitary, 
isolated spot of authentic tradition; it will be banished and 
driven away from the face of men in despair of finding a home 
where truth and justice reside. Branded with infamy all over, it 
must seek a resting-place only in bosoms from which the dark 
passions of hate and fur}- have forever excluded the light. 

Before the Republic has attained little more tlian a man's 
life, have we reached a development of passion that France did 
not mature for nearly a thousand years? Are we. in the early 
youth of the nation, about to discover the worst symptoms of 
the insane maladies that assailed France in the revolution? 
Have we so soon fallen on the dark scene in the drama of 
nations which marked the declining days of the Roman Em- 
pire? Is all truth confounded before our eyes, and are the 
very vestiges of justice obliterated from our hearts? What un- 
heard-of m.adness has destroyed the consciousness of fact in 
our minds and the sensibility- of conscience within us? Has the 
storm of sectional strife drowned the voice of histon.? Are the 
living records of the age erased by the intensity of party heat? 
Has memor}- been dethroned from the human mind, and her 
proud sceptre surrendered to prejudice? For such must be our 
meLancholy condition when we can believe that the *' South is 
degenerate." Rise from your graves, immortal founders of the 
Republic and rebuke the impious calumny! Great Father of 
your Country-, I invoke your hallowed name to silence it for- 
ever! Illustrious author of the " Decl.\ration." h.as thy glory 
been so soon extinguished? Father of the Constitution, has 
thy honored name perished amid the blows mflicted on thy 
great work? Hero of Xew Orleans, has the bright fame of 
your victor}- over a foreign foe been eclipsed by a more recent 
^-icto^v over the liberties of the State vou defended? Has the 



JOHN PELHAM. 3OI 

8th of January, 1815, been blotted out by the 4th of January, 

1875? 

When did the South become degenerate! When her sons 

unaided and alone bore the " Lone Star" westward, and carved 
an Empire State from the heritage of the Montezuma^;? Or 
did her courage expire on the blazing heights of Buena Vista, 
and did Taylor, and Bragg, and Crittenden dim its lustre? Was 
her honor lost by Scott or Lee in the valleys, on the hills, or 
before the walls of Mexico? or was her bright sword tarnished 
when Butler and the P:.imetto Regiment left on the field of 
Cherubusco the example that was to be no more gloriously 
followed by the six hundred at Balaklava? Are we to be told 
of Southern degeneracy in the Halls of this Capitol, where 
the echoes of the mighty words of Clay and Calhoun still ring 
in our ears, and the proud images of Marshall and Taney stand 
guard at the altars of justice; where ten Presidents of the United 
States rise before our eyes to attest its falsehood, and a train of 
heroes, statesmen, jurists, with an endless line of patriots, pro- 
claim its injustice? Senators, before you can believe it, you 
must tear from American history its brightest pages; you must 
pull down the Capitol, remove its monuments, and obliterate 
its name. Go to the uttermost limits of the earth, follow the 
remotest waves of the sea, stand on any spot in the vast breadth 
of your country, and look up and behold t!ie flag of the Re- 
public, and the starry banner that blazes over your head will 
recall at the " dawn's early light and the twilight's last gleam- 
ing" the genius and soul of the Southern patriot from whom it 
derived its dearest inspiration. 

MATT. W. RANSOM. 



J 



JOHN PELHAM. 

UST as the Spring came laughing through the strife, 

With all its gorgeous cheer. 
In the bright April of historic life 

Fell the great cannoneer. 



302 READING AND ORATORY. 

The wondrous lulling of a hero's breath, 

His bleeding country weeps — 
Hushed in the alabaster arms of Death, 

Our young Marcellus sleeps. 

Nobler and grander than the Child of Rome, 

Curbing his chariot steeds, 
The knightly scion of a Southern home 

Dazzled the land with deeds. 

Gentlest and bravest in the battle-brunt. 

The champion of the truth, 
He bore his banner to the very front 

Of our immortal youth. 

A clang of sabres 'mid Virginian snow. 

The fiery pang of shells — 
And there's a wail of immemorial woe 

In Alabama dells. 

The pennon drops that led the sacred band 

Along the crimson field; 
The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand 

Over the spotless shield. 

We gazed and gazed upon that beauteous face, 

While round the lips and eyes. 
Couched in the marble slumber, flashed the grace 

Of a divine surprise. 

Oh, mother of a blessed soul on high! 

Thy tears may soon be shed — 
Think of thy boy with princes of the sky, 

Among the Southern dead. 

How must he smile on this dull world beneath, 

Fevered with swift renown — 
He — with the martyr's amaranthine wreath 

Twining the victor's crown. 

JAMES R. RANDALL. 



READING AND ORATORY. 303 



KENTUCKY. 



IF it is true, as has been repeatedly asserted, that the growth 
and quality of the literature of a people are largely influenced 
and dependent upon their natural surroundings, may we not 
reasonably hope much from the future of a State so blessed in 
physical charms and characteristics as the " Dark and Bloody 
Ground"? Who will say that the free, fresh air, the rugged 
scenery, and the inspiring associations of old Scotia had nothing 
to do with the development of the genius of Sir Walter Scott? 
Could Rob Roy and the Heart of Mid Lothian, could Marmion 
and the Lay of the Last Minstrel, ever have been written but by 
a native and lover of the land they depicted? No: their author 
could only have been one who had roamed her lonely moors 
and trod her fragrant heather; who loved her gray old rocks 
and beetling crags; who had heard the roar of the cataract in 
her romantic glens and the scream of the eagle in her mountain 
fastnesses, and whose soul had been stirred by the wierd music 
of the moaning pines that stand like sentinels upon the shores 
of her beautiful lakes. 

If scenes like these foster and develop genius, then we can 
understand one at least of the elements that have entered into 
the creation of the orators and soldiers of this most picturesque 
old Commonwealth, and we may reasonably expect her to be the 
cradle of illustrious poets also. The Highlands of Scotland are 
not more wildly beautiful than the mountain regions of Ken- 
tucky. Her Blue Grass lands areas lovely and more fertile than 
the Campagna of Italy. Her forests in Autumn are galleries of 
Nature's own most glorious handiwork. The sublimity of her 
vast, silent, and awe-inspiring caves is recognized the wide 
world over; and that most picturesque of rivers, the Kentucky, 
with its towering cliffs and wooded heights, its rugged bed, 
shadowy shores, and miniature cascades, and its bold and hoary 
old rocks, crowned with feathery ferns, decked with beautiful 
mosses, and wrapped in fantastic vines, needs but ruined castles 
and crumbling battlements to make it far outvie the vaunted River 
Rhine George w. ranck. 



304 READING AND ORATORY. 



THE RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE THE LIFE OF 
THE NATION. 

IN discussing the great principle that reHgion is the life of a 
nation, we would unequivocally say, the politician should be 
merged and forever lost in the Christian statesman, and not the 
Christian in the politician. Love of country is a sacrifice, not 
always an enjoyment. Patriotism is a Christian virtue, often 
sustained by the severest self-denial. 

Let us inquire what is public virtue? Is it not the sum of 
private virtue? And what is private virtue but the golden fiuit 
of true and efficient religion? Then, can any one doubt that, 
just in proportion to the religion and virtue of the people, will 
be that vital national principle which will sustain them in every 
public trial; be their handmaid in every vicissitude of fortune; 
strengthen every department of State, and stand amidst the 
severest storms the immovable bulwark of liberty? Virtue is the 
strength of the nation. The moral excellence of all nations should 
and does constitute their power, their stability, their endurance. 
This is evident from the fact that the boundaries of Christianity 
are not only the landmarks of civilization, but beyond them 
dwell, without exception, the ignorant and the vicious. Man- 
kind, if properly instructed, instead of being mobilized under 
hostile banners, and drilled for the slaughter of the battle-fields, 
would prefer, as they would adorn, the pulpit, the forum, the 
library, the desk, the workshop, the market, where their moral 
and physical nature would develop, and their intellectual ca- 
pacity under the genius of Christianity would expand to its highest 
dignity. 

We are taught by history, as well as common sense, that na- 
tions work out, by vice, their own destruction; and we learn 
from the Bible that God designed that the religious principle, 
as reflected from its pages, is the life of the nation. 

W. ARCHER COCKE. 

William Archer Cocke was born in Virginia, of an ancient and honorable family, edu- 
cated there, and adopted the profession of law. During the war he occupied an impor- 



LOOKING FOR THE FAIRIES. 305 

tant civil position under the Government at Richmond, and on its termination emigrated 
to Florida and practised his profession there. He has been Attorney-General of that 
State, and is now one of its District Judges. His contributions to the review and maga- 
zine literature of the day have been numerous and valuable, and he i.s the author of A 
Treatise on the Common and Ch'il Law, as embraced in the Jurisprudence of the United 
States, New York: 1871, which has been quoted as authority in the highest courts of 
England and America. 



LOOKING FOR THE FAIRIES. 

I'VE peeped in many a blue-bell, 
And crept among the flowers, 
And hunted in the acorn-cups, 

And in the woodland bowers; 
And shook the yellow daffodils, 

And search'd the gardens round, 
A-looking for the little folk 
I never, never found. 

I've linger'd till the setting sun 

Threw out a golden sheen, 
In hope to see a fairy troupe 

Come dancing on the green ; 
And marvell'd that they did not come. 

To revel in the air, 
And wondered if they slept, and where 

Their hiding-places were. 

I've wandered with a timid step 

Beneath the moon's pale light. 
And every blazing dew-drop seemed 

To be a tiny sprite; 
And listened with suspended breath. 

Among the grand old trees, 
For fairy music floating soft 

Upon the evening breeze. 



306 READING AND ORATORY. 

Ah me! those pleasant, sunny days, 

In youthful fancies wild, — 
Rambling through the wooded dells, 

A careless, happy child! 
And now I sit and sigh to think 

Age from childhood varies, 
And never more may we be found 

Looking for the fairies. 



MISS JULIA BACON. 



THE HISTORIC RECORD OF NORTH CAROLINA. 

SIR, North Carolina feels that she is still one of the elder 
daughters of the great American family, and in all the 
higher and sublimer elements of character the equal of any; 
because she has a record and a history that she is justly proud 
of, and that cannot be taken away from her either by her 
enemies or the ephemeral politicians of the hour. 

Sir, the first Englishman that ever landed on the soil of the 
United States, the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh, rested on the 
shores of North Carolina, on Roanoke Island, on the 4th of July 
(prophetic coincidence!), 1584, before the Pilgrims landed at 
Plymouth, or Jamestown was settled. The first child of English 
parents born in this country first saw the light on her soil; and 
it was of her colonists that Governor Burrington, as early as 
1732, in an official despatch, said: "The inhabitants of North 
Carolina always behave insolently to their governors, and some 
of them they have imprisoned; and all the governers that ever 
were here lived in fear of the rebels — except myself — and 
dreaded their assemblies and their love of liberty." 

The first blood of the colonists ever spilled was poured out, 
as a rich libation in defence of liberty, in Alamance County, 
in the district I represent on this floor, on the 7th May, 1771; 
and the first declaration of independence of the British yoke — 
afterward incorporated almost literally into the national Decla^ 
ration — was made and proclaimed at Charlotte the 20th of 
May, 1775. 



MATURNUS BEFORE COMMODUS. 307 

Such, sir, and so full of historic renown and sublime heroism, 
is the State that I in part represent here, in behalf of whose 
oppressed people I speak, and in whose name I plead with you, 
Representatives, to repeal your oppressive and punitive legis- 
lation. Let her manage her own affairs, subject to the Consti- 
tution of the United States, and grant her and her Southern 
sisters, now that the war has ended, all the rights you claim 
for the other States of this great Republic. Wayward and wil- 
ful, perhaps, she has been; Dut honor and virtue still are hers. 
If her errors have been great, her suffering and oppression 
have been greater. Like a stricken mother, with yearning 
heart she stands in silent grief over the graves of her illustrious 
children, whose counsel and wisdom she so much needs in her 
present dark hour of oppression and degradation. The me- 
mentos of her former glory lie in ruins around her. The 
majesty of sorro>y sits enthroned on her brow. Proud of 
her statesmen and heroes who sleep beneath her sacred sod, 
she cherishes in her heart her living children, md loving 
them with a mother's warm affection, she begs them not to 
forget or forsake her. And while some of those unnatural 
children are found in the ranks of her enemies, reviling and 
slandering her, and crying "crucify her!" as one of her humblest 
children, I mean in the future, with even more love and zeal than 
in the past,to devote my life and energies, and whatever talent I 
may possess, to the re-establishment of her rights and liberties, 
and the promotion of her prosperity and happiness. 

J. M. LEACH. 



MATURNUS BEFORE THE EMPEROR COM- 
MODUS. 

COMMODUS. Bring in Maturnus, there!— 
Strike off his chains! 

Art thou a Roman, rebel? 
Maturnus. In Sicily 

I saw the daylight first. My father's stock 



308 READING AND ORATORY. 

Is Roman, free-born, ancient as the pines 

That grew round Numa's fountain when he woo'd 

The nymph — 

Commodus. And won a pedant for his mistress! 
Foh! Grace most graceless! Give me leave to ask. 
Most ancient pine-tree, what you thought to do 
When you cried war to-day? 

Maturniis. I thought, the purple, 
The passport of thy bestiality and shame. 
Might still be snatched from out the mire thou roll'st in 
And flung upon the shoulders of a man! 

Commodus. Thine own, perchance? 

Maturnus. That might have been the sequel, 
But did not strain my motives. Had I found 
A second Marcus to undo the ills 
That Marcus' son hath wrought — to him the purple! 
Rome had a Senate once — ^when Rome was Rome, 
And overtopped the nations! That old Senate 
Might come to light again, and with one breath. 
Caught from the lungs of Cato and of Brutus, 
Send all these Caesars hurtling into space 
Like leaves before the whirlwind! 

Commodus. Art a god. 

To live above ambitions? 

Maturnus. Art a beast, 
To live below them? Commodus, I die. 
But thou still livest — for a little while 
At least — O make thy crown a star to guide 
Thy people onward, not a blaze of shame 
To make them long for midnight's pit to hide in! 

Commodus. Hercules! I have not been so schooled 
since Marcus 
Clapped his stark homilies like poultices 
Upon my weary ears! How wilt thou die? 

Maturnus. I have no choice. It boots me not to say. 

Commodus. Art ready? Doth the purple spectre wake 
No terrors in thee? 



MATURNUS BEFORE COMMODUS. 309 

Maturnus. I have lived with death 
As my familiar. I have done my duty, 
Embalmed my honor in sweet self-respect, 
And kept my body pure. Sir, living thus, 
Can death confuse me? Slaves of lies and lust, 
Who, waked from midnights steeped in blood and wine. 
Quake in the ghastly dawn — these, these may quail, 
And hug to life, and cringe with panic leers, 
Like zanies in a farce — but not true men! 

Commodus. By Hercules! I'll prove thee! Colonnus, 
Prepare thee! Give him sword and shield! Now fight — 
Or else — 

Maturnus. No! Take these toys away! A Roman soldier 
Can die, but cannot play the mountebank. 
Nor mate with hireling swordsmen! — that he leaves 
To Csesar! 

Commodus. Fight! I say thou shalt, or die 
A death more dreadful than was e'er conceived! 

Maturnus. Just as thou wilt, sir! When 'tis done 'twill be 
No more than death! 

Commodus. No more than death? Thou fool! 
The ghastliest death thou dreamest of is a bliss 
To what my slaves can show thee! I have men 
Cunning in torment, skilled in agony. 
Who know the utmost pang each nerve can bear. 
And keep the soul still quivering on the lips, 
Even in a hell of torture! There thou'lt shriek 
For death, in vain — no pity! 

Maturnus. Spoken like 
The son of Marcus Pius! For thy pity, 
Why should I cry for that which ne'er existed? 
In thy most narrow and contracted soul 
The vices have such lodging as bars door 
'Gainst even virtue's semblance! 

Commodus. Hercules! 

Have at him, Colonnus! 

EDWARD SPENCER. 



3IO READING AND ORATORY. 



THE ARCTIC VOYAGER. 

SHALL I desist, twice baffled? Once by land, 
And once by sea, I fought and strove with storms, 
All shades of danger, tides, and weary calms; 
Head-currents, cold and famine, savage beasts, 
And men more savage; all the while my face 
Looked northward toward the pole; if mortal strength 
Could have sustained me, I had never turned 
Till I had seen the star which never sets 
Freeze in the Arctic zenith. That I failed 
To solve the mysteries of the ice-bound world 
Was not because I faltered in the quest. 
Witness those pathless forests which conceal 
The bones of perished comrades, that long march, 
Blood-tracked o'er flint and snow, and one dread night 
By Athabasca, when a cherished life 
Flowed to give life to others. This, and worse, 
I suffered — let it pass — it has not tamed 
My spirit nor the faith which was my strength. 
Despite of waning years, despite the world 
Which doubts, the few who dare, I purpose now — 
A purpose long and thoughtfully resolved, 
Through all its grounds of reasonable hope — 
To seek beyond the ice which guards the Pole, 
A sea of open water: for I hold, 
Not without proofs, that such a sea exists. 
And may be reached, though since this earth was made 
No keel hath ploughed it, and to mortal ear 
No wind hath told its secrets. . . . 

With this tide 
I sail; if all be well, this very moon 
Shall see my ship beyond the southern cape 
Of Greenland, and far up the bay through which. 
With diamond spire and gorgeous pinnacle, 
The fleets of winter pass to warmer seas. 



. RIP VAN WINKLE. 3II 

Whether, my hardy shipmates! we shall reack 

Our bourne, and come with tales of wonder back, 

Or whether we shall lose the precious time, 

Locked in thick ice, or whether some strange fate 

Shall end us all, I know not; but I know 

A lofty hope, if earnestly pursued. 

Is its own crown, and never in this life 

Is labor wholly fruitless. In this faith 

I shall not count the chances — sure that all 

A prudent foresight asks we shall not want, 

And all that bold and patient hearts can do 

Ye will not leave undone. The rest is God's! 

HENRY TIMROD. 



RIP VAN WINKLE; 

OR, THE VIRGINIAN THAT SLEPT TEN YEARS. 

IT was in the month of August, 1867, that old Rip was 
aroused from his slumbers by the din and clamor of a 
crowd, that seemed to be seeking the shade of his quiet resting- 
place; and wiping the dust from his eyes, and parting the long 
grayish mats of hair that hung over his forehead, he beheld a 
strange and wonderful spectacle — a vast procession of negroes, 
with banners of strange devices, while a discordant chorus of 
untuned voices rang out on the still summer air, "John 
Brown's soul is marching on; is marching on!" ** What" — says 
old Rip — " what's this? That's a new tune for harvest. What 
does all this mean.? 'Taint Christmai." At last the crowd as- 
sembled around an empty wagon, that served for a rostrum, and 
Manuel, Rip's cart driver, commenced his half-mournful, half- 
jubilant harangue: 

" We is free, my brethren, we is free. Mr. Lincum sot you 
free; and you work no more. Like de Hebrew children who 
were tabernacled in de lo' grounds of sorrow, you is bound for 
de promised Ian', where de grapes and de milk and de honey 



312 READING AND ORATORY. 

is. All dese lands is yourn, and you bound for de kingdom; 
and de 'livering time am come, and you rock no more in de 
weary land; and I played on de harp of a thousand strings, — 
'nigger on de top rail now.' Ah! ah! so, Gabriel, blow your 
horn, and 1 work no more, and I work no more in de backer 
and de corn. Whar now is good old Daniel! And de jubilee 
am come; and I feel my freedom from de sole of my head to de 
top of my feet! And we'll rally round de flag!" 

Old Rip stands speechless. "/F//c> is that 1 Why, Manuel, 
ain't that you? Come down from there — you are drunk." But, 
before old Rip could add another word, another colored gentle- 
man, who appeared to be a candidate for the Convention, arose 
and said: 

"Mr. President ob de Lial League, feller-citizens, ladies an' 
gem'men, and Christian brudderin; I zents myself 'fore you 
to-day as a can'date fer your free sufferins fer a delicate seat in 
de great convention dat's 'bout to resemble in de city ob Rich- 
mond. I does congugate myself dat I has got de honor to 
misrepresent you in dat extinguished body. I goes in fer de 
confistication ob all de lands ob de sarocessioner race, and 
turn dem ober to de Freedmens Bureau, an den vide 'em out 
'rnong de colored race in geographical proportionment accordin' 
to de last scnsas^ wharby each head ob de family git his portion- 
ment in fee simplum. I favors de sirredoption ob de German 
Shellybagger bill, dat give equality 'fore de law and 'hind de 
law to de colored man all at de same time. An' if I does git 
collected to dat great body, whar I specs, I'll give you all a 
home an' a mule; and dem's my principles, an' dem's de prin- 
ciples ob all de great Radical tomartyrs whar come down here 
from de North, an' leavin' father and mother an' all dey got 
fer de poor colored man. Oh! dey is de angels ob de Lord, 
whar brings de glad tidings ob good news to my joyousmg 
eyes. 

" Oh yes, Mr. President, thar am a great time coming in de 
future of antiquity fer de colored race, when dey takes to posi-. 
tion whar dey is presbyterianated fer! 

" Ladies an' gem'men, I thank you fer de impatient retention- 



CARCASSONNE. 3 I 3 

ment whar you have given to de few disremembered remarks 
what I have briefly flung out fer your fogitations. I move we 
now pints a seccerterry to de meetin'." 

F. R. FARRAR. 

Judge F. R. Farrar was bom fifty years ago in Prince Edward Co. , Va., and 
was educated at Princeton and the University of Virginia. He is a lawyer by profession, 
but just after the war came upon the platform for the lirst time in the role of lecturer, 
and at once acquired great popularity by the humor and pathos of his lectures, his 
powers of characterization and description, and his dramatic delivery. His most pop- 
ular lectures are "Johnny Reb, the Confederate," "Rip Van Winkle," "The American 
Eagle," " Lights and Shades," and the " County Court Lawyer." 



CARCASSONNE. 

[From the French of Gustave Nadaud.] 

I'M growing old. I've sixty years; 
I've labored all my life in vain: 
In all that time of hopes and fears 

I've failed my dearest wish to gain. 
I see full well that here below 

Bliss unalloyed there is for none. 
My prayer will ne'er fulfilment know — 
I never have seen Carcassonne. 
I never have seen Carcassonne! 

You see the city from the hill, 

It lies beyond the mountains blue, 
And yet to reach it one must still 

Five long and weary leagues pursue, 
And to return, as many more! 

Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown! 
The grape withheld its yellow store: — 

I shall not look on Carcassonne. 

I shall not look on Carcassonne! 

They tell me every day is there 

Not more nor less than Sunday gay; 



314 READING AND ORATORY. 

In shining robes and garments fair 

The people walk upon their way. 
One gazes there on castle walls 

As grand as those of Babylon, — 
A bishop and two generals! 

I do not know fair Carcassonne. 

I do not know fair Carcassonne! 

The vicar's right: he says that we 

Are ever wayward, weak and blind; 
He tells us in his homily 

Ambition ruins all mankind; 
Yet could I there two days have spent, 

While stilt the Autumn sweetly shone, 
Ah, me! I might have died content 

When I had looked on Carcassonne. 

When I had looked on Carcassonne! 

Thy pardon, Father, I beseech, 

In this my prayer, if I offend; 
One something sees beyond his reach 

From childhood to his journey's end. 
My wife, our little boy Aignan, 

Have travelled even to. Narbonne; 
My grandchild has seen Perpignan, 

And I have not seen Carcassonne. 

And I have not seen Carcassonne! 

So crooned, one day, close by Limoux, 

A peasant, double-bent with age. 
"Rise up, my friend," said I; "with you 

I'll go upon this pilgrimage." 
We left next morning his abode, 

But (Heaven forgive him!) half-way oij 
The old man died upon the road: 

He never gazed on Carcassonne. 

Each mortal has his Carcassonne! 

JOHN^R. THOMPSON 



READING AND ORATORY. 315 



NO SAFETY, FOR ANY PEOPLE, IN ARBITRARY 

POWER. 

THE experience of this General Assembly, and of the 
memorialists before us, must admonish us that any appli- 
cation for redress to the Federal Goverament, in any of its de- 
partments, is idle and hopeless now. There is but one recourse 
left us, and that is to appeal to the public opinion and sense of 
right of the whole country: to call upon free and true men 
everywhere, in our own State and in our sister States, to lift 
their voices foi the rescue of the Constitution, before it shall 
have gone down into the vortex, whose narrowing and rapid 
circles have already swept its great bulwarks from around the 
rights of the people of Maryland. 

It is not a question of Union or Disunion. It is a question 
of Constitution or no Constitution: a question of Freedom or 
no Freedom. There can be no trust and no safety, for any 
people, in arbitrary power. It is progressive, untiring, unresting. 
It never halts or looks "backward. Call it by what holy name 
you will : sanctify it by what pretexts or purposes of patriotism 
you may — under any flag, in any cause, anywhere and every- 
where, it is the foe of human right, and by the law of its being 
is incapacitated from leading to good. As surely as man's 
nature is corrupt, and the lust of power the most corrupting and 
insatiable of his appetites, so surely will any Government or 
system sink into anarchy or despotism, if committed to his ar- 
bitrary will. 

There is no life for liberty but in the supreme and absolute 
dominion of law. The lesson is written, in letters of blood and 
fire, all over the history of nations. It is the moral of the an- 
nals of republics since their records began. It is legible upon 
the crumbling marbles of the elder world — it echoes in the 
strifes and revolutions of the new. Wherever men have thought 
great thoughts and died brave deaths for human progress, its 
everlasting truth has been sealed and proclaimed. It will be 
true — is true — for us and for ours, as it has been for those who 



3l6 READING AND ORATORY. 

have preceded us, and the consequences of its violation will be 
upon us, as upon them, unless the Providence whom we are mock- 
ing shall break the inevitable chain which drags effect after cause. 
And let the people of no other section shut their eyes to the 
danger, because it seems to be impending over us only, and not 
over them. Let them not sympathize with usurpation, because 
its blows for the present appear aimed only at sections and in- 
dividuals whose opinions differ from their own. They know 
not what a day may bring forth, and they cannot measure the 
harvest which may spring from a seed-time of impunity in 
usurpation and wrong. 

SEVERN TEACKLE WALLIS. 



THE PRINCE OF SPLENDOR. 

HO! Poet with the harp of Praise, 
And fingers light and slender, 
Lo! with a host of shining days 

There comes the Prince of Splendor — 

God's chosen month of all the twelve. 
The wise, the good, the sober. 

Who ne'er was born to dig and delve, 
The Joseph-like October! 

Down in the quiet vales I hear 

This glorious new-comer. 
Interpreting unto the year 

The dreams of Spring and Summer. 

And in the busy fields I see 

His golden chariot gliding, 
And hear the sheaves cry "Bow the knee!" 

Where'er the Prince comes riding. 

And now upon the hill he stands. 
In colors warm and glowing; 



THE BLUE ROBBER OF THE PINK MOUNTAIN. 317 

Through all the land, with willing hands, 
His garnered grain bestowing. 

A kinder hand than Jacob's threw 

That gorgeous robe around him; 
A greater king than Egypt knew 

With all this glory crowned him. 

Ho, Artist! to the woods away, 

To meet this Prince of Splendor, 
And paint his features while you may, 

In colors rich and tender. 

MRS. A. M. HOLBROOK. 



THE BLUE ROBBER OF THE PINK MOUNTAIN. 

A BURLESQUE DIME NOVEL. 

NEAR the close of the thirteenth century, Sir Hildebrand 
Hiltersplit, covered with a complete panoply of neuter 
verbs and relative pronouns, commenced his ascent of Mount 
Paphos, that lies in the Gutta Percha Range. Arriving at the 
summit, he beheld stretched out before him the beautiful valley 
of Neuralgia. There he beheld the sea-horse and the crocodile 
sporting side by side, the reindeer and the humming-bird flit- 
ting from flower to flower, and the melodious watermelon and 
the isinglass growing upon the same vine. 

Upon the banks of an umbrageous stream that ran careering 
from the mountain side, and nestled in a small Alpine grove, 
reposed the tent of the ancient Barbacan— the grand Clam- 
sloop of the country. At about the hour of half-past four 
o'clock in the afternoon, his daughter, the fair Sarsaparilla, clad 
in chloroform, and waving her nascent and sporadic sceptre, 
entered the presence of the ancient Barbacan, her father, bear- 
ing in her left hand a small dish of stewed parasangs and fried 
conostrophies, on which her ancient sire made his evening re- 
past. And seating herself on the asteroids of public grief, in 



3l8 READING AND ORATORY. 

one corner of the pavilion, she poured forth her native gypsum 
in the most delightful strains, as she swept the chords of her 
light bandana. 

Attracted by this wonderful operatic copologo, Sir Hilde- 
brand Hiltersplit entered the apartment, and, throwing himself 
at her feet, doled out his love-ditty in the most mellifluous and 
oleaginous cadences. 

Scarcely had he risen from his recumbent position, when the 
Blue Robber of the Pink Mountain broke into the apartment. 
At sight of this horrid monster, clad in the form of an obese 
fandango, the fair Sarsaparilla shrieked, and uttered a cry so 
piercing that Sir Hildebrand Hiltersplit shrank into the interior 
of the ottoman. With the most audacious strides the robber 
approached the fair Sarsaparilla, and with his left arm encircled 
her waist; whilst with his right hand he seized a small catapult 
of silver she wore suspended from her neck by a bill of lading. 

Agonizing with grief and unbounded rage. Sir Hildebrand 
Hiltersplit darted from his place of concealment, and seizing a 
boot-jack that lay floating on the floor, stabbed the monster to 
the heart; and left the fair Sarsaparilla, like an illuminating 
light, standing upon the binnacle of her own expectability, from 
which exalted position she looked down with mingled scorn and 
contempt upon her baffled pursuer. 



ORATION AT THE FUNERAL OF JOHN A. 
WHARTON. 

THE keenest blade on the field of San Jacinto is broken!— 
the brave, the generous, the talented John A. Wharton is 
no more! His poor remains lie cold and senseless before you, 
wrapped in the habiliments of the grave and awaiting your kind 
offices to convey them to the charnel-house appointed to all the 
living. A braver heart never died. A nobler soul, more deeply 
imbued with the pure and fervent spirit of patriotism, never 
passed from its tenement of clay to the more genial realms of 



ORATION AT FUNERAL OF J. A. WHARTON. 319 

immortality. Though he was young in years, and at the very 
threshold of his fame, yet every heart in this assembly will 
respond, in painful accordance, to the melancholy truth that 
a mighty man has fallen among us. Many princes of the 
earth have perished in their prime, surrounded with all the 
gorgeous splendors of wealth and power, and their country 
has suffered no damage. But surely it will be engraven on 
the tablets of our history, that Texas wept when John A. 
Wharton died. 

The brief time permitted us to linger about his waste and at- 
tenuated form is insufficient to recite the testimonials of his 
gallantry. He was among the first to propose the independence 
of Texas; and true to the frankness of his nature, he was fore- 
most with those who nobly bared their bosoms to the storm, 
when that declaration which gave assurance to the world that 
a man-child was born into the family of nations was pronounced. 
It is enough to say that he was distinguished on the field of San 
Jacinto — for there were no recreants there. All had strung their 
chafed and dauntless spirits to the high resolve of Liberty or 
Death; and he who could make himself conspicuous on such a 
battle-field was, indeed, a hero — nay, a hero among heroes! for 
never in the annals of war did braver hearts or stouter hands 
contend for Liberty 

With you, gentlemen of the House of Representatives, the 
lamented deceased was associated by an intimate political con- 
nection. You have observed his assiduity, his untiring zeal, his 
singleness of heart, and his profound and accurate judgment 
in all the exalted duties of a legislator. To you he furnished 
ample evidence that his great professional attainments were only 
inductive to the still more enlarged capacities of his intellect, and 
that when his mind was turned to politics, it seemed as if nature 
had fashioned him for a statesman. You are bereaved of a 
valuable and much valued member — whose vacant seat it will be 
difficult to fill with equal endowments. That eloquent tongue 
is hushed in death, and the grave-worm will shortly fatten upon 
it. Those lips, that never quivered except under the gush of 
"words that breathe and thoughts that burn," are closed for- 



320 READING AND ORATORY. 

ever, and no more shall these walls reverberate their thrilling 
enunciations. 

To you, soldiers! he was endeared by many ties. You have 
shared with him the toils and privations of an arduous and pro- 
tracted campaign. You have witnessed and have participated 
in his devotion to his country, and his patient endurance of 
fatigue and suffering in the tented field, his agonized indigna- 
tion at every successive retreat before the invading foe. Many 
of you retain, in vivid recollection, his burning impatience for 
the conflict when on the great day of San Jacinto his buoyant 
spirit gratulated his companions-in-arms on the near prospect 
of a battle: and you have marked his gallant bearing when the 
shock of arms first sounded on the plain, and the war-cry of 
Alamo! carried terror and dismay into the camp of the bloody 
homicides of Goliad. Behold your brother-in-arms! A cold, 
silent, prostrate corse. No more shall the din of war arouse his 
martial spirit to deeds of high enterprise. That lifeless clay 
would heed it not, for the bright spirit which lately animated 
and adorned it has passed triumphantly beyond the narrow 
bourne of mortal strifes, to that blessed region where " wars 
and rumors of wars are never heard." 

DAVID G. BURNET. 

David G. Burnet was born in Newark, N. J., April 4, 1788. In 1806 he served 
as lieutenant under Miranda in his effort to free Venezuela; engaged in merchandising 
in Natchitoches in 1817, and being threatened with consumption came to Texas 
and spent ten years among the Comanches on the head-waters of the Colorado; located 
permanently in Texas, was member of the San Felipe Convention of 1833, and drew up 
the memorial which it presented to the Mexican Government praying that Texas be 
made a separate State of the Republic (Coahuilaand Texas then formed one State); was 
made Judge of the Municipality of Austin, 1834 He took an active part in the Revolu- 
tion that separated Texas from Mexico, and in 1836, a few days after the Declaration 
of Independence, he was elected by the Convention President ad interim of the Re- 
public of Texas: in 1838 was elected by the people Vice-President, retiring, when his 
term expired, to his little farm on the San Jacinto, which he cultivated with his own 
hands; after annexation he was appointed Secretary of State by Governor Henderson: 
in 1866 he was elected U. S. Senator, but was not permitted to take his seat, on the plea 
of the non-reconstruction of Texas. He died at Galveston, Decembers, 1870. 



READING AND ORATORY. 32I 



CHRISTMAS NIGHT OF '62. 

THE wintry blast goes wailing by, 
The snow is falling overhead, 
I hear the lonely sentry's tread. 
And distant watch-fires light the sky. 

Dim forms go flitting thro' the gloom, 
The soldiers cluster round the blaze 
To talk of other Christmas days, 

And softly speak of home and home. 

My sabre, swinging overhead, 

Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow, 
While fiercely drives the blinding snow, 

And Memory leads me to the Dead. 

My thoughts go wandering to and fro. 
Vibrating 'twixt the Now and Then, 
I see the low-brow'd home again. 

The old Hall wreathed with mistletoe. 

And sweetly from the far-off years 

Comes borne the laughter faint and low, 
The Voices of the Long Ago! — 

My eyes are wet with tender tears. 

I feel again the mother-kiss, 
I see again the glad surprise 
That lighted up the tranquil eyes 

And brimmed them o'er with tears of bliss, 

As rushing from the old Hall door, 
She fondly clasped her wayward boy, 
Her face all radiant with the joy 

She felt to see him home once more. 






322 READING AND ORATORY. 

My sabre, swinging on the bough, 
Gleams in the watch-fire's fitful glow, 
While fiercely drives the blinding snow 

Aslant upon my saddened brow. 

Those cherished faces all are gone, 
Asleep within the quiet graves, 
Where lies the snow in drifting waves, — 

And I am sitting here alone. 

There's not a comrade here to-night 
But knows that loved ones far away 
On bended knees this night will pray: 

God bring our darling frofn the fight. 

But there are none to wish me back. 
For me no trembling prayers arise. 
The lips are mute, and closed the eyes — 

My home is in the bivouac. 

W. GORDON McCABE. 



THE BACK-LOG; 

OR, UNCLE NED's LITTLE GAME. 

IT was a rule at Thornton Hall, 
Unbroken from Colonial days. 
That holiday at Christmas-tide 

Was measured by the Christmas blaze; 
For till the back-log burned in two, 

The darkies on the place were free 
To dance and laugh, and eat and drink. 
And give themselves to jollity. 

And mighty were the logs they brought. 

Of weight that six stout men might bear. 
All gnarled and knotten, slow to burn: 
For Christmas comes but once a year. 



THE BACK-LOG. S^S 

Old Ned had cut the log that year, 

Old Ned, the fiddler, far renowned, 
Who played at every country dance 

That happened thirty miles around. 
He cut the log; for days his face 

Showed gleams of merriment and craft, 
He often went behind the house, 

And leaned against the wall and laughed. 
And called the other darkies round 

And whispered to them in the ear. 
And loud the ringing laughter broke: 
For Christmas comes but once a year. 

At twilight upon Christmas Eve 

The log was borne on shoulders strong 
Of men who marked their cadence steps 

With music as they came along; 
And Ned, with air of high command. 
Came marching at the head of all. 
As he had done for " thirty year," 
On Christmas Eve at Thornton Hall. 
He led the chorus as they marched, 
The voices ringing loud and clear 
From lusty throats and happy hearts: 
For Christmas comes but once a year. 

Though briskly blazed at Christmas Eve 

That fire with flames and embers bright, 
Until the antique fireplace lit 

The panelled walls with ruddy light — 
Although the spacious chimney roared 

Like woodlands in autumnal gales, 
And lion andirons of bronze 

Were red-hot in their manes and tails. 
That back-log, incombustible, 

Lay quite unkindled in the rear, 
Or only slightly scorched and charred: 
For Christmas comes but once a year. 



324 READING AND ORATORY. 

Wide open swung the great hall door 

Before the east was gray with dawn, 
And sleighs with argosies of girls 

Came jingling up across the lawn; 
Came youths astride of prancing steeds, 

Came cousins to the tenth remove. 
With cousin greetings by the sweet 
Lip services that cousins love. 

The silver tankard went around 

To every lip with brave good cheer, 
According to the ancient rites: 

For Christmas comes but once a year. 

They feasted high at Thornton Hall, 

The Christmas revel lasted long: 
They danced the Old Virginia reels, 
And chanted many a jovial song. 
The old folk prosed, the young made love; 

They played the romps of olden days. 
They told strange tales of ghost and witch. 
While sitting round the chimney's blaze. 

But though the pile of lightwood knots 

Defied the frosty atmosphere, 
The back-log still held bravely out: 
For Christmas comes but once a year. 

And at the quarter merry rang 

The fiddle's scrape, the banjo's twang; 
How rhythmic beat the happy feet! 

How rollicsome the songs they sang! 
No work at all for hands to do. 

But work abundant for the jaws, 
And good things plenty, smoking hot. 
Made laughter come in great yaw-haw's! 
They frolicked early, frolicked late, 

And freely flowed the grog, I fear, 
According to the settled rule: 

For Christmas comes but once a year. 



THE MODERN KNIGHT. 325 

So passed the merry Christmas week, 

And New Year's morning came and passed; 
The revel ceased, the guests went home, 

The back-log burned in two at last. 
And then old master sent for Ned, 

Still mellow with protracted grog, 
And asked him where in Satan's name 

He picked him out that fire-proof log: 
And Ned, with all that dignity 

That drink confers, contrived to speak, 
"I tuk and cut a black-gum log, 

And soaked it nine days in de creek. 
I fears it was a wickid thing, 

I'm feared to meet de oberseer; 
But den you mus' remember, sah, 

Dat Christmas comes but once a year." 

INNES RANDOLPH. 



THE MODERN KNIGHT. 

[From The Symphony.] 

WHERE'S he that craftily hath said, 
The day of chivalry is dead? 
I'll prove that lie upon his head. 
Or I will die instead, 
Fair Ladye. 
Is Honor gone into his grave? 
Hath Faith become a caitiff knave, 
And Selfhood turned into a slave 
To work in Mammon's cave. 

Fair Ladye? 
Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again? 
Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain 
All great contempts of mean-got gain 
And hates of inward stain. 
Fair Ladye? 



326 READING AND ORATORY. 

For aye shall name and fame be sold, 
And place be hugged for the sake of gold, 
And smirch-robed Justice feebly scold 
At Crime all money-bold, 
Fair Ladye? 
******* 
Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed 
To fight like a man and love like a maid, 
Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade, 
I' the scabbard, death, was laid, 
Fair Ladye, 
I dare avouch my faith is bright, 
That God doth right and God hath might, 
Nor time hath changed His hair to white, 
Nor His dear love to spite. 
Fair Ladye. 
I doubt no doubts: I strive, and shrive my clay, 
And fight my fight in the patient modern way. 
For true love and for thee — ah me! and pray 
To be thy knight until my dying day 
Fair Ladye. 

SIDNEY LANIER. 



ADDRESS TO GEORGIA LEGISLATURE, 1864. 

I HAVE addressed you longer than I expected to be able to 
do. My strength will not allow me to say more. I do not 
know that I shall ever address you again, or see you again. 
Great events have passed since, standing in this place, three 
years ago, I addressed your predecessors on a similar request, 
upon the questions then immediately preceding our present 
troubles. Many who were then with us have since passed away 
— some in the ordinary course of life, while many of them have 
fallen upon the battle-field, offering up their lives in the great 
cause in which we are engaged. Still greater events may be just 
ahead of us. What fate or fortune awaits you or me, in the con- 



ADDRESS TO GEORGIA LEGISLATURE. 327 

tingencies of the times, is unknown to us all. We may meet 
again, or we may not. But as a parting remembrance, a lasting 
memento^ to be engraven on your memories and your hearts, I 
warn you against that most insidious enemy which approaches 
with her syren song, " Independence first and liberty afterward." 
It is a fatal delusion. Liberty is the animating spirit, the soul 
of our system of government, and like the soul of man, when 
once lost it is lost forever. There is for it, at least, no redemp- 
tion, except through blood. Never for a moment permit your- 
selves to look upon liberty — that constitutional liberty which 
you inherited as a birthright — as subordinate to independence. 
The one was resorted to to secure the other. Let them ever be 
held and cherished as objects coordinate, coexistent, coequal, 
coeval, and forever inseparable. Let them stand together 
"through weal and through woe," and, if such be our fate, let 
them and us all go down together in a common ruin. Without 
liberty, I would not turn upon my heel for independence. I 
scorn all independence which does not secure liberty. I warn 
you also against another fatal delusion, commonly dressed up 
in the fascinating language of, " If we are to have a master, who 
would not prefer to have a Southern one to a Northern one?" 
Use no such language. Countenance none such. Evil com- 
munications are as corrupting in politics as in morals. 

"Vice is a monster of such hideous mien, 
That to be hated, needs but to be seen, 
But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

I would not turn upon my heel to choose between masters. 
I was not born to acknowledge a master from either the North 
or South. I shall never choose between candidates for that 
office. Shall never degrade the right of suffrage in such an 
election. I have no wish or desire to live after the degradation 
of my country, and have no intention to survive its liberties, 
if life be the necessary sacrifice of their maintenance to the 
utmost of my ability, to the bitter end. As for myself, give me 
liberty as secured in the Constitution with all its guarantees, 
amongst which is the sovereignty of Georgia, or give me death. 



328 READING AND ORATORY. 

This is my motto while living, and I want no better epitaph 
when I am dead. 

Senators and Representatives! the honor, the rights, the dig- 
nity, the glory of Georgia are in your hands! See to it, as 
faithful sentinels upon the watch-tower, that no harm or detii- 
ment come to any of those high and sacred trusts, while com- 
mitted to your charge. 

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



HONORS TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE PEA- 
BODY. 

In the annals of our race, there is no record of funeral hon- 
ors, to an uncrowned man, such as have been rendered to 
George Peabody. The story which comes nearest to what we 
have beheld, is told by the grandest historian of Rome and is 
lighted by the finest touches of his genius. It follows the 
widow of Germanicus across the wintry seas, as she bore, from 
Antioch to Rome, the ashes of her hero. We can almost see 
the people crowding to the walls and house-tops, and thronging 
the sea-coast, as with slow oars the silent galleys come. The 
voice of lamentation seems to echo round us, as it rose from all 
the multitude, when Agrippina landed with her precious bur- 
den, and her sobbing children followed. The urn is borne to 
the Imperial City on the shoulders of centurions and tribunes. 
Crowds hasten from afar and weep, in mourning garments, by 
the roadsides. Funereal altars smoke with victims as the sad 
array goes by, and spices, and perfumes, and costly raiment are 
flung into the flames as offerings. The City streets — now still 
as death, now loud with bursting sorrow — are thronged with 
Rome's whole people, and when, at last, the ashes are at rest 
in the Augustan Mausoleum, a wail goes up, such as before had 
never swept along those marble ways. 

The tale which Tacitus has told us of these splendid obse- 
quies comes to us, with redoubled grandeur, through " the cor- 
ridors of time," and yet its instruments are almost tame to 
what ourselves have witnessed. The stately ship which bore, 



HONORS TO THE MEMORY OF GEO. PEABODY. 329 

across the waves, the corpse of him we honor, is a marvel that 
Rome never dreamed of — the proudest convoy that ever 
guarded human ashes. The ocean which she traversed is an 
empire, over which the eagles of Germanicus knew no domin- 
ion. The mighty engines and instruments of war which wel- 
comed her were far beyond the prophecy of oracle or thought 
of Sybil. Beside the unseen power whch dragged the funeral- 
car and cleft the waters, with its burden, in mastery of the winds, 
the might of legions is simple insignificance, and it seems like 
trifling to tell of galleys, centurions, and tribunes. Nor is there 
in the mourning of the populace of Rome over one of its broken 
idols a type even of the noble sorrow which has united men of 
all nations and opinions in their tribute to our lamented dead. 

And who shall speak of Heathen temple, or Imperial tomb, 
in the same breath with the great Abbey Minster, where he 
slept awhile, amid the monuments and memories of statesmen 
and warriors, philosophers and poets, philanthropists and 
kings — where more of the dust of what was genius and great- 
ness is gathered than ever lay under roof or stone? There is 
something that almost bewilders the imagination, in the 
thought, that on the day and at the hour when our own bells 
were tolling his death-knell, and people stopped to listen in the 
streets, the requiem of the Danvers boy was pealing through 
aisle and cloister, thousand of miles away, where funeral song 
had rung and censers smoked whole centuries before men knew 
the Continent which was his birthplace. It seems as if the 
dirge of to-day were a reverberation from the ages. 

And when we reflect how simple the career was which closed 
amid all these honors: how little their subject had to do with 
the things which commonly stir men's bosoms and win the 
shouts of wonder and applause, in life or after it: that he was 
not great, as men judge greatness: that every badge and trophy 
of his exceeding triumph was won by an unconscious and an 
unstained hand: I confess it seems to me that the grand, spon- 
taneous tributes which have been paid to him have beggared 
the resources, while they have filled the measure, of panegyric. 

S. TEACKLE WALLIS. 



330 READING AND ORATORY. 

Severn Teackle Wallis, D. C. L., was born September 8, 1816. graduated at St. 
Mary's College, Baltimore, 1832, read law in the office of Hon. William Wirt, and was 
admitted to the bar, 1837. After spending several years abroad he published, in 1849, 
Glimpses 0/ Spain ^yi\\\c\s. passed through several editions. In the winter of 1849 he 
was sent to Madrid by the U. S. Government to investigate the title to the public lands 
in East Florida, acquired from Spain under the treaty of 1819, and on his return pub- 
lished S/>aiii: Her Institutions^ Politics^ and Public Men. In 1861 he was elected a 
member of the Maryland House of Delegates, and as Chairman of Committee on Fed- 
eral Relations was the author of the report made upon the memorial of some of the 
State officials who had been imprisoned by military order. It discussed the whole 
question of " military necessity" and the proper subordination of the militarj' to the 
civil powers, and fixed the historic status of Maryland in the conflict. Fifty thousand 
copies were printed for distribution, but thirty tliousand were seized by a Wisconsin 
regiment and publicly burned at its camp as " treasonable documents." There is not 
a principle or doctrine in it which has not since been proclaimed as indisputable law 
by the U. S. Supreme Court. It led to the dispersion of the Legislature by force of 
arms, and the arrest of many members. Mr. Wallis was confined fourteen months in 
the Federal Forts McHenry, Monroe, Lafayette, and Warren— steadily refusing to take 
oaths or sign a parole— until finally he was discharged without condition, having never 
been informed of the ground of his arrest. Since the war professional duties have 
monopolized his attention. Two notable war lyrics are from his pen— ^ Prayer for 
Peace, and The Guerrillas. He is Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of 
History at Madrid; Fellow of the Society of Northern Antiquarians of Copenhagen; 
and Provost of the University of Maryland. As orator, scholar, and jurist his reputa- 
tion is national. 



THE OREGON QUESTION. 

IT is as the representative of a high-spirited and patriotic 
people, that I am called on to resist this war clamor. My 
constituents need no such excitements to prepare their hearts 
for all that patriotism demands. Whenever the honor of the 
country demands redress; whenever its territory is invaded — if, 
then, it shall be sought to intimidate by the fiery cross of St. 
George — if, then, we are threatened with the unfolding of Eng- 
lish banners if Ave resent or resist — from the Gulf-shore to the 
banks of that great river, throughout her length and breadth — 
Mississippi will come. And whether the question be one of 
Northern or Southern, of Eastern or Western aggression, we 
will not stop to count the cost, but will act as becomes the de- 
scendants of those who, in the War of the Revolution, engaged 
in unequal strife to aid our brethren of the North in redressing 
their injuries. 



THE GRAY NORTHER OF TEXAS. 33 1 

We turn from present hostility to former friendship — from 
recent defection to the time when Massachusetts and Virginia, 
the stronger brothers of our family, stood foremost and united 
to defend our common rights. From sire to son has descended 
the love of our Union in our hearts, as in our history are min- 
gled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and 
Saratoga, of Moultrie and Plattsburg, of Chippewa and Erie, 
of Bowyer and Guilford, of New Orleans and Bunker Hill. 
Grouped together they form a monument to the common glory 
of our common country; and where is the Southern man who 
would wish that monument were less by one of the Northern 
names that constitute the mass? Who, standing on the ground 
made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feel- 
ing to curb his enthusiasm as he looks upon that obelisk which 
rises, a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and 
stands a type of the time, the men, and the event that it com- 
memorates? — built of material that mocks the waves of time, 
without niche or moulding for parasite or creeping thing to rest 
on, and pointing like a finger to the sky, to raise man's thoughts 
to philanthropic and noble deeds! 

JEFFERSON DAVIS. 



THE GRAY NORTHER OF TEXAS. 

THE sky is all one leaden gray, 
No shifting clouds across it play, 
No gleam of sunshine there appears, 
No rain falls down like softening tears, 
No thunder mutters in the air. 
No quivering lightning flashes there. 
The earth's as changeless as the sky. 
The prairie doth all waveless lie; 
No sound the fearful silence breaks, 
No wind the feath'ry Mesquit shakes, 
Its long dry pods of brownish red 
Hang by a single withered thread, 



332 READING AND ORATORY. 

But not a leaf comes rustling down, 
Though every shrub is sere and brown, 
Save where the Frejolillo green 
Weaves round yon spring a shelt'ring screen. 
The prickly Cactus, long and round, 
Stands on each spot of barren ground. 
Or, like green serpents in the grass. 
Lurks prompt to wound us as we pass. 
All leafless stand the tall Pecans, 
The dry Guizache shows its thorns, 
Which hidden 'neath its foliage lay, 
But reft of that, stand bare and gray. 
From tree to tree no birds now fly, 
All shivering in their nests they lie. 
While every creature frightened looks; 
The cattle cower in sheltered nooks. 
And with them herd the timid deer. 
While both stand trembling — mute with fear; 
Awe-stricken nature, hushed and still, 
Expectant seems of coming ill. 

Now o'er the prairie's broad expanse 
The cold Gray Norther doth advance; 
On, on it comes, with sullen roar. 
Like waves upon a distant shore, 
It strikes the trees — they groan and shake, 
The dead leaves fall, the dry pods break. 
While surging waves across the grass 
In quick succession rise and pass. 

'Tis thus with life — how gray it seems — 
No ray of sunshine o'er it gleams 
When summer friends have cast their green. 
And bare and sharp its thorns are seen. 
Or lurking in our comforts lie. 
To wound us sharper by-and-by. 
When withered hopes hang by a thread, 
Or day by day fall sere and dead; 



SOUTHERN SOCIETY AND DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 333 

And fancies, fluttering warm and bright 

Upon each branching thought to light, 

Lie hushed and still within the breast, 

Like timid birds upon their nest; 

Where Heaven itself is hid by clouds, 

And dark despair the spirit shrouds, 

As in the future, more and more 

We mark the coming Norther's roar. 

It strikes our hearts — they shrink and quake, 

And from them wails of anguish break, 

As o'er the past we wildly weep. 

When surging waves of memory sweep 

Across the present, sere and dry 

As prairies 'neath a winter sky. 

But yet, the heart that seeks aright 

Will always find some green in sight. 

If life's cold Northers, wet or gray. 

Sweep not its sheltering faith away. 

Which rooted in eternal springs 

Around the soul its mantle flings. 

MRS. MARY BAYARD CLARKE. 

Mrs. Mary B.w.^rd Clarke, authoress, is a daughter of Hon. Thos. P. Devereux, of 
North Carolina, and is connected by blood and marriage with many of the oldest and most 
influential families of that State and Virginia. She is an accomplished linguist, a true 
poet, and one of the most brilliant conversationalists of her time. When quite young, 
she married Col. William Clarke, who distinguished himself in the Mexican War. 
Her literary works are: Reminiscences 0/ Cuba; Wood-Notes (\%^i^)\ Mosses from a Roll- 
ing Stone {j&dS); Clytie and Zenobia: A Poem {xZ-ji). 



SOUTHERN SOCIETY AND DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 

NO stronger evidence of what progress society may make 
with domestic slavery can be desired than that which 
the present condition of the slaveholding States presents. For 
near twenty years, foreign and domestic enemies of their insti- 
tutions have labored by pen and speech to excite discontent 



334 READING AND ORATORY. 

among the white race, and insurrection among the black; these 
efforts have shaken the National Government to its foundations, 
and burst the bonds of Christian unity among the Churches of 
the land; yet the objects of their attacks — these States-^have 
scarcely felt the shock. In surveying the whole civilized world, 
the eye rests not on a single spot where all classes of society 
are so well content with their social system, or have greater 
reason to be so, than in the slaveholding States of this Union. 
Stability, progress, order, peace, content, prosperity, reign 
throughout our borders. Not a single soldier is to be found in 
our widely-extended domain to overawe or protect society. 
The desire for organic change nowhere manifests itself. 
Within less than seventy years, out of five feeble colonies, with 
less than one and a half million of inhabitants, have emerged 
fourteen Republican States, containing nearly ten millions of 
inhabitants, rich, powerful, educated, moral, refined, prosper- 
ous and happy; each with Republican Governments adec[uate 
to the protection of public liberty and private rights, which are 
cheerfully obeyed,supported, and upheld by all classses of society. 
With a noble system of internal improvements penetrating 
throughout the land, bringing education and religious instruc- 
tion to the homes of all the people, they may safely challenge 
the admiration of the civilized world. 

None of this great improvement and progress have been even 
aided by the Federal Government; we have neither sought 
from it protection for our private pursuits, nor appropri- 
ations for our public improvements. They have been effected 
by the unaided individual efforts of an enlightened, moral, 
energetic, and religious people. Such is our social sys- 
tem, and such our condition under it. Its political wisdom is 
vindicated in its effects on society; its morality by the practices 
of the patriarchs and the teachings of the apostles; we submit 
it to the judgment of mankind, with the firm conviction that 
the adoption of no other system under our circumstances would 
have exhibited the individual man, bond or free, in a higher 
development, or society in a happier civilization. 

ROBERT TOOMBS. 



READING AND ORATORY. 335 

THE BALL. 

(a true incident.) 

I. 

THE brig cast anchor in the bay; 
Steady and tall of mast was she. 
One of her seamen up the wharf 
Passing, and whistling merrily, 
Thought in his heart as he turned to look, 
That so fair a vessel few might see. 

" Nothing so lovely upon the shore," 

He thought, as he strolled along the Strand; 
" One floating sail of yon battered ship 

Is worth all the treasures of the land." 
But he paused, his heart, on a sudden, big, 
For there in the sun little maidens three 
Sat together, fair-faced, like those 
In dear old England over the sea. 

Clear-eyed and sweet like those at home 

In dear old England over the sea! 
And the sunburnt sailor thought in his heart 

That so fair a sight might seldom be. 
They chatted together, as children will 

Of dolls and dinners, " but best of all 
(They cried in chorus), it must be 

To dance awhile at a real ball.'' 



Four o'clock of the afternoon. 

With the golden sunshine streaming down, 
And a wide hall swept and garlanded 

(One of the grandest in the town), 
A band of music, with Leader grave. 

Setting their hands and their strings in tune, 
And three little girls arrayed in white 

At four o'clock of the afternoon. 



336 READING AND ORATORY. 

" Let the ball begin," the sailor said, 

As he sat in a corner looking on, 
And the fiddlers scraped and the Leader called 

With a face like that of a Spanish Don; 
Up and down, across and across, 

The children flew, and the loud ha-ha! 
Of the sailor burst through the open hall 

At this " prettiest sight he ever saw!" 

People that passed looked in and stared, 
But the music and prompting still went on; 

And the dear little lasses skipped and danced, 
Two together and one alone. 

Never were princesses half so grand, 

Queens or ladies in any land; 

And the sailor swore as he slapped his knee, 

That so fair a sight but few might see! 

Oh, little lasses, dance merrily on! 

With feet and hearts that keep time to the tune 
Played by the grandest band in town, 

At four o'clock of the afternoon! 
Not often again, though years may bring 

Conquest, and dance, and praise, maybe, 
Will one so honest and true give praise 

As the Tar in yon corner slapping his knee! 

Dance lightly on, not soon again, 

Nay, never, perhaps, little maidens three, 
To that honest heart will come a dream 

So fair, of his sisters over the sea. 
— Up and down, across and across. 

In the grand white hall, to a merry tune, 
— Three little maids at a Sailor's Ball, 

At four o'clock of the afternoon! 

MRS. MOLLIE E. MOORE DAVIS. 



READING AND ORATORY. 33/ 



GENERAL JAMES JOHNSTON PETTIGREW. 

C "GENERAL JAMES JOHNSTON PETTIGREW had 
T that in his nature which made men respect him. His 
learning, his accomplishments, his talents, were all under the con- 
trol of his moral sense. He was a man who desired to be, and 
not to seem. His ambition was large, but it was an ambition to 
do what was worthy to be done. " What he would highly, that 
he would holily;" and although, as strong men will desire, he 
desired the vantage-ground of place and power — the standpoint 
wherefrom to use the lever of his intellect — yet his life was 
instinct with the consciousness that a great end can never be 
compassed by low means, that nothing is worthy the ambition 
of a true man which requires the sacrifice of personal honor, of 
fidelity to his friends, or of loyalty to his convictions. 

He was essentially an earnest man. From his early youth, 
whatever he did was done with an intense purpose. As his ex- 
perience widened and his mind matured, the purpose was 
changed, but the intensity was constant. Those who knew him 
best will, I think, agree with me that this earnestness was every 
year concentrating upon a higher purpose and proposing to it- 
self a loftier aim, that the restlessness of his early ambition was 
subsiding, the effort of his intellect growing steadier, and that 
it needed only this final consecration to an unselfish cause to 
perfect the nobleness of his character. 

When I think of him, and men not unlike him, and think that 
even they could not save us; when I see that the cause which 
called out all their virtues and employed all their ability has been 
permitted to sink in utter ruin; when I find that the great prin- 
ciples of constitutional liberty,the pure and well-ordered society,- 
the venerable institutions in which they lived and for which they 
died, have been allowed to perish out of the land, I feel as if, 
in that Southern Cause, there must have been some terrible 
mistake. But when I look back again upon such lives and 
deaths; when I see the virtue, and the intellect, and the courage 
which were piled high in exulting sacrifice for this very cause, I 



338 READING AND ORATORY. 

feel sure that, unless God has altered the- principles and motives 
of human conduct, we were not wholly wrong. I feel sure that 
whatever may be the future, even if our children are wiser 
than we, and our children's children live under new laws and 
amid strange institutions, History will vindicate our purpose, 
while she explains our errors, and, from generation to generation, 
she will bring back our sons to the graves of these soldiers of 
the South, and tell them — aye, even in the fulness of a pros- 
perity we shall never see — This is holy ground; it is good for 
you to be here! 

WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT. 

William Henry Trescot was born at Charleston, S. C, November lo, 1822, and 
after graduation at the College of Charleston, studied law. Soon after his admission to 
the bar he married and settled as a planter on Barnwell Island, where he lived until the 
plantation was occupied by Federal troops in the late war. In 1852 he was Secretary of 
Legation to London; Assistant Secretary of State in i860; was assistant to Hon. Jas. L. 
Pettigru in codifying the laws of the State; and in 1877 was counsel for the United States 
before the Halifax Fishery Commission. His principal published works relate to di- 
plomacy, upon which subject he is universally regarded as the highest authority in the 
South. He is the author of Diplo7nacv 0/ the Revolution^ Appleton &Co., 1852; Diplo- 
matic History 0/ the Administrations 0/ IFashington and Adatns, Utile, Brown &Co., 
1857; An American View of the Eastern Question, John Russel, 1854; Address before 
South Carolina Historical Society: Eulogy on Geti. Stephen Elliott before South Caro- 
lina Legislature, 1866; Memorial of Gen. Johnston Pettigrew, i?iyo. His present resi- 
dence is Washington, D. C. 



THE FUTURE OF THE RESTORED UNION. 

THE ideas that have prevailed, and are still to a great ex- 
tent prevailing, can no more become the permanent policy 
of the Government than could the interregnum of Cromwell de- 
stroy the natural and inherent loyalty of the people of England. 
And already we see in the indications of popular opinion the 
first blush of the morning, as it scatters the mists and with 
roseate hues announces the day, bright with the memories of 
the Old Regime. 

All hail! all hail! Advance to meet it— Young Men of the 
South, advance to meet it! Forgetting the bitterness of the 
past, with strong hands and earnest hearts press forward to 



THE FUTURE OF THE RESTORED UNION. 339 

establish the prosperity of your entire country, under the aegis 
of the Constitution restored. Let dead issues rest in the grave 
where the war buried them. The Future is your field of labor. 
It is white for the harvest. Under the Providence of God the 
hopes of mankind may not fail. Sit not down amid the ruin 
and desolation of your country to weep over her fate — another 
" Niobe of Nations, all childless and crownless in her voiceless 
woe." Look not into the Past, to rake up the skeletons of its 
gory memories. Look rather into the Future. I am sure we 
will come forth from that sanctuary like the High Priest came 
forth from the Holy of Holies, with our countenances illumined 
with some faint glory reflected from the scroll of our high des- 
tiny. 

Could we hope once more to restore the Constitution in its 
true intent, what visions allure us of greatness and glory for 
our common country! We are dazzled with the brightness that 
blazes down upon us f.'^om the momentos of its triumphs. Its 
Ensign will flame out over an Empire richer than that of Persia, 
when Xerxes first crossed the Hellespont: more glorious than 
that of Athens, when Pericles held the keys of her destiny: 
more powerful than that of Rome, when her eagles flew from 
Britain to the Ganges. Truth will claim dominion over all the 
realms where the human mind has hitherto entered, and will 
open up new regions in which to lay down the lines of its bound- 
less empire.' It will no longer, as of old, immerse itself in the 
cave of the hermit, or the cloister of the monk: nor, as of late, 
will it be stifled by the petty order of a provost-marshal, or 
the tinkling bell of a passing official; but will walk abroad in 
the full light of day, and claim its inherent right to rule. It 
will attack Error in its fastnesses and strongholds in the high 
places of the land; will break its weapons and sit in triumph 
upon its ruins, with the sceptre of Power and the crown of 
Victory. f. w. m. holliday. 

Frederick \V. M. Holliday is a Virginian. After graduating at Yale College in 
1847, he graduated in law at the University of Virginia, and entered at once on the 
practice of his profession at Winchester. In 1S61 he entered the Confederate army 
as a Captain in the famous Stonewall Brigade, became a Colonel (having declined a 
place on Stonewall Jackson's staff), and lost an arm at Cedar Mountain, which prevented 



340 READING AND ORATORY. 

further service in the field. When the war ceased he returned to his profession, but took 
an active part in the political canvasses involving the reconstruction of Virginia and her 
restoration to her rights in the Union. The only political office he has ever held is that 
of Governor, to which he was elected in 1877 — the nomination having been tendered him 
unsolicited. 



BARGAIN AND SALE. 

OF all the classic gods we find among Olympian coteries, 
The two that were completely blind had most devoted 
votaries. 
Blind Cupid all the young controlled, unselfish, ardent, 

amorous; 
Blind Plutus* devotees were old and all for lucre clamorous. 
Young lovers then, with sweet content, could feed on homely 

pottages, 
And happily their lives were spent in very humble cottages. 

But Eros, like a childish fool, of Plutus' sway grew emulous, 
And thought he would prefer to rule o'er subjects gray and 

tremulous. 
He knew that force would naught avail, so never thought of 

trying it; 
But Plutus held his all for sale, and Love resolved on buying it. 
But how to raise the needful gold, — it set poor Cupid'pondering: 
At last his own domain he sold, and Plutus' bought it, wonder- 
ing. 

Then Cupid broached the other trade; but Plutus had the 
start of it, 

And sold, for all that Cupid made, not all his realm, but part 
of it. 

Olympus was at first struck dumb, and thought it quite an oddity, 

That warm affection had become a saleable commodity; 

But soon, all those possessed of pelf, for love were freely spend- 
ing it. 

While those with naught but love itself were diligently vend- 
ing it. 



BARGAIN AND SALE. 34I 

But as with liquor, when the great demand meets not enough 

of it, 
The venders will adulterate, and make atrocious stuff of it, 
E'en so with love: and those who bought had need be not too 

curious, 
Lest they should find the love they sought much mixed, or 

wholly spurious. 
And as their drugs the tapsters see destroyed, yet nothing reck 

of it; 
So Plutus little cared, for he had made a handsome spec. 

of it. 

And Plutus now, in rich attire, finds every one caressing him: 
Whate'er he says, they all admire; whate'er he does, are bless- 
ing him. 
His grudging alms — so truly rare — are praised as princely 

charity: 
His boorish blunders all declare enchanting singularity: 
His hobble is the step of grace, his stoop the finest attitude: 
There's beauty in his wrinkled face, and wit in every plati- 
tude. 

His delf is finest porcelain; his sourest wine a rarity: 

To wed him, gay Fifteen were fain, and thinks there's no dis- 
parity. 

But Cupid finds, alas ! that he has treatment most injurious; 

For soon he came to penury, when he became penurious. 

So now he goes with elbows out, few seeking and few heeding 
him. 

And, slipshod, gropes his way about, — for who has time for 
leading him? 

And thus it comes -that none can please with wit or worth, if 
moneyless; 

They get the sting of honey-bees, but must retreat all honey- 
less : 

While he, with barren heart and brain, who hath estates ba- 
ronial, 



342 READING AND ORATORY. 

Need never fear to try in vain in matters matrimonial: 

That wealth is prized all things above, and sought with most 

avidity; 
For Plutus rules the realm of love, and Cupid of cupidity. 

R. B. MAYES. 



THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL. 

IT was in the sunlight of a sweet spring day that I entered 
the Rock Spring School at the Eleven Oaks. The morning 
dawned so bright! and I was glad and happy. The air was 
soft and balmy, and the woods rang with the minstrelsy of the 
birds. One little cloud hung on the sky, as white and as peace- 
ful as incense from the burning censer of the heavens. The 
flowers hung their jewelled heads as if dreaming of the rainbow. 
My step was lithe and quick, and my heart beat full and 
strong. 

The old School-house stood on the brow of a hill, sheltered 
in the grove — framed of unhewn logs, chinked with mud, with 
a low, flat roof of slabs. At the door stood a grand old oak of 
giant growth, that threw its long green branches over the turf- 
less play-ground. At the base of the hill a spring of sparkling 
water broke from the granite bosom of the rocks, sending forth 
a limpid, laughing stream that murmured softly beneath the 
willow-trees that drooped and waved above its pebbly bed. 

I shall never forget the kindly greeting of my teacher. His 
person was tall and graceful, his face manly and handsome, and 
his full blue eyes beamed with kindness and good-nature. His 
voice was low and womanly sweet; he never raised it, for he 
was the laziest man that ever lived. In the long summer days, 
with a dictionary for a pillow, he would sleep until the chill 
dews of the evening warned him to his home. But with the 
boys he was a beau-ideal of a professor; he kept no switch, 
made no reports to our parents, and threw us children on our 
honor as gentlemen. Yet, with all this, he was a wonderful 



THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL. 343 

genius, devoted to poetry and polite literature. I have listened 
to him through many a long summer play-time, as his rich, 
sweet voice would melt and flow in beautiful recitations of song 
and verse. 

In recurring to those days, fresh in my memory is the Friday 
evening when I made my first essay as an original writer, in a 
composition which was rendered in a trembling, uncertain 
voice: — 

A MULE. 

A mule is a large quadruped with a stripe down his back. A mule has six legs; 
two hind legs and his fore legs. A mule is a common noun, and the singular 
number, except his ears, and is always in tlie objective case, and ain't governed by 
nothing. General Washington had many mules. Horses is superior to mules, 
and mules follow horses like common people trot after big folks. The largest 
mules in the world come from Kentucky. Daniel Boone killed bears in Kentucky. 
Kentucky is bounded on the north by the Ohio River, and the Ohio River empties 
into the Mississippi River, and the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. 
The Gulf of Mexico is a great gulf. There are no mules in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Alas, alas, for the old school days. My teacher, poor fellow, 
early fell a prey to consumption, and passed away in the fulness 
of his hope and his manhood. His cheeks grew pale and thin, 
his eyes glistened with unearthly light, and one bright evening 
he called me to his side and said — " Dear boy, I have nothing 
left me but to die." And the red hectic burnt on his cheeks, 
and in broken accents he faintly whispered, " My life is like a 
summer rose," -" My life is like a" — then a fitful start, and the 
silken cord was broken. And the setting sun shed a glow of 
crimson light on his calm and placid face; and he lay before 
me like an infant sweetly dreaming. 

We followed him to his grave, and the women put flowers on 
his coffin — for he was a stranger, and had no mother there, — and 
we laid him out of sight. And as the clods fell the boys hid 
behind the trees and cried. And after that the grass grew green 
under the great oak at the School-house door. 

Nothing now marks the spot. The old log cabin is levelled 
to the earth; the great oak is riven by the storm blast; the 
spring is hid in the noss and the leaves. The sweet voice of 
the teacher is hushed, and the glad shout of the boys is lost to 
my ears forever. 

F. R. FARRAR. 



344 READING AND ORATORY. 



OUR DUTY AS PATRIOTS. 

AS the custodians of liberty, my countrymen, we have a 
great work to perform. It must be preserved inviolate on 
these Avesiern shores for our children and for their children's 
children. We must cultivate a love of ccualry. We must keep 
step henceforth to the music of the Union. We held firmly, 
unwaveringly to certain noble principles we thought in danger. 
We appealed to the sword, and were defeated. Our people have 
accepted in the most absolute good faith that decision. There 
will be no more war for thoie principles, although they are imper- 
ishable. In the words of that very eloquent and able divine, Dr. 
Moses Hoge: "A form of government may change, a policy 
may perish, but a principle can never die. Circumstances may 
so change as to make the application of the principle no longer 
possible y So the South will never again take up arms for any 
principle that entered into the War between the States. It has 
solemnly sworn henceforth to maintain and cherish the Con- 
stitution as it is. That beautiful flag, so dear to our hearts, 
that once floated in triumph over so many battle-fields, has 
been furled forever. 

Inscribe, my countrymen, these talismanic words upon your 
banners: Duty to God, duty to country, duty to self. Let 
consequnces take care of themselves, let us take care of duty. 
Let us, as free men, go straight forward in the path of duty. Let 
that be our pole-star, our guiding principle, our inspiration. 
Let genuine patriotism abide in our hearts and control our 
lives — that patriotism that stands ready if need be " to refine 
itself into martyrdom," and is pledged to " suffer as well as act." 
Let us preserve inviolate our ancestral faiths, our spirit of con- 
secration to right principle, our devotion to liberty, our obedi- 
ence to law. Let us each swear upon the altar of our common 
country, on this hundredth birthday of the nation, that we will 
be faithful to our country's liberties, that we will do what 
we can as good citizens to work out, for the benefit of 
those who are to follow, that problem of such mighty potency 



THE FAWN. 345 

and such mighty pregnancy — the problem of a free, constitu- 
tional, just, and popular government on this vast continent. 

T. B. KINGSBURY. 



THE FAWN. 



I 



LAY close down beside the river, 
My bow well strung, well filled my quiver. 



The god that dwells among the reeds 
Sang sweetly from their tangled bredes. 

The soft-tongued water murmured low, 
Swinging the flag-leaves to and fro. 

Beyond the river, fold on fold. 

The hills gleamed through a film of gold. 

The feathery osiers waved and shone 
Like silver thread in tangles blown. 

A bird, fire-winged, with ruby throat, 
Down the slow, sleepy wind did float, 

And drift and flit and stray along, 
A very focal flame of song. 

A white sand isle midmost the stream 
Lay sleeping by its shoals of bream. 

In lilied pools, alert and calm. 

Great bass through lucent circles swam; 

And farther by a rushy brink 

A shadowy fawn stole down to drink, 

Where tall, thin birds unbalanced stood 
In sandy shallows of the flood. 



34^ READING AND ORATORY. 

And what did I beside the river, 

With bow well strung and well filled quiver? 

I lay quite still, with half -closed eyes, 
Lapped in a dream of paradise, 

Until I heard a bow-cord ring, 
And from the reeds an arrow sing. 

How quickly brother's merry shout 
Put my sweet summer dream to rout! 

I knew not what had been his luck, 
If well or ill his shaft had struck; 

But up I sprang, my bow half-drawn, 
With keen desire to slay the fawn. 

Where was it, then? Gone like my dream! 
I only heard the fish-hawk scream. 

And the strong, striped bass leap up 
Beside the lily's floating cup. 

I only felt the cool wind go 
Across my face with steady flow; 

I only saw those thin birds stand 
Unbalanced on the river sand. 

Low peering at some dappled thing 
In the green rushes quivering. 

JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON. 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 

IF the Bible be found to rob poetry and mythology of some 
of their ethereal fancies,it substitutes nobler truths,and senti- 
ments equally chaste. If it has displaced cloud-compelling 



THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS. 34/ 

Jove from Olympus, it has placed the heavens under the care 
of Him who "weigheth them in His balance," and "directeth His 
thunder under the whole heavens, and His lightning to the ends 
of the earth." If Aurora no longer opens the doors of the 
east, her office is performed by Him who causeth the dayspring 
to know his place. If the chariot of the sun be no longer 
under the care of Apollo, it is guided by Him who hath set a 
tabernacle for the sun. If Diana has forgotten to lead her 
circlet in the heavens, it revolves at the bidding of Him "who 
hath appointed the moon her seasons." If the sceptre of 
^olus is broken, the winds are under the direction of Him " who 
guides the whirlwind and propels the storm — who maketh the 
clouds His chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind. 
If the trident of Neptune no longer sways the sea, its billows 
heave beneath the eye of Him who hath said to the deep, " Thus 
far shalt thou come, but no farther; and here shall thy proud 
waves be stayed." If Ceres has deserted the fields, they are 
under the care of Him who has promised that " seed-time and 
harvest shall succeed each other," to the end of time. If the 
vintage has ceased to ripen for Bacchus, it abounds for Him 
"who causeth wine to make glad the heart of man." If Nemesis 
no longer bears the balances of the earth, they are transferred 
to Him, "the habitation of whose throne is justice and judg- 
ment." 

If the Dryads have forsaken the groves, and the Naiads the 
streams, the voice of Deity is speaking to the heart in the 
whisper of every tree, and the murmur of every fountain. If 
the Muses that presided over the spheres have abandoned the 
object of their tutelar regard, they are still propelled by the 
hand that rounded them, and peal out the hymn in which they 
united when the "morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
of God shouted for joy." If Iris has ceased to be the mes- 
senger of the wrath of Juno, it has become the covenant of 
the mercy of Jehovah. If Pluto has resigned the guardian- 
ship of Hades, it is to him who "holds the keys of hell and 
death"; and if the Lares and Penates have abandoned the 
threshold and hearthstone, their place is supplied by Him who 



348 READING AND ORATORY. 

hath promised to make the habitation of the righteous His 

abode, and to dwell in the heart of the humble. If all the 

deities have vanished before the light cf truth and revelation, 

The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. 
" N. c. brooks. 



THE CONFEDERATE DEAD. 

THE Confederate Dead! In the memories stirred by these 
words are mingled what shattered dreams of glory, what 
tender regrets, what a priceless legacy of undying fame! 

Who were these men, that we should so value them? Were 
it for nothing more than their martial valor and prowess on the 
field, we might well be proud of them as countrymen. They 
were the gayest and gallantest gentlemen that ever went down 
to battle, the stoutest soldiery that ever breasted the flood of 
death; and their cheer had a ring of victory in it that made a 
comrade's blood to bound, and the foeman's heart to quail, 
when he heard the exultant shout. In the charge, they pressed 
on with confident and resistless courage, and woe to the enemy 
who urged too rashly their sullen retreat. They never learned 
to fly, and in the last moments of a hopeless struggle the vic- 
tors could not stand before their assaults. If you judge them 
by their achievements against overwhelming numbers, no con- 
test in history can equal their unavailing resistance. They met 
in the field the flower of the youth of every land, allured by 
the stipend of the North, and Celtic fire was quelled, Teutonic 
stubbornness was melted like wax, and the well-knit phalanxes 
of the West were shattered by their blows. The soldiers who 
upheld for four years the cause of the South will rank in his- 
tory among the first for courage, endurance, discipline, cheer- 
fulness, intelligence, and humanity. 

But it is not as mere soldiers we must view our dead. They 
were the champions of a noble cause, the cause of constitu- 
tional Hberty and of immemorial rights made sacred by the 
monuments of more than six hundred years. They repre- 



OUR LANGUAGE. 349 

sented, moreover, the principles of self-government, of local 
freedom, and of the right of a people to decide their own 
political associations. In them was struck down these ancient 
and honorable ideas; and the community of nations allowed 
itself to listen to, and virtually to approve, the plea of the im- 
perial and irresponsible centralization that triumphed. We 
have no complaints to make; but when startled Liberty in 
other lands turns hither and thither for sympathy or aid, we 
can point them to the lists where our champions lie slain, but 
not dishonored. 

WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON. 

William Preston Johnston, eldest son of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, was bora 
at Louisville, Ky., January 5, 1831. He attended the Western Military Institute, 
Georgetown, Ky.; graduated at Yale College in 1852, and at Louisville Law School, 1853. 
Practised law until the war began, when he served in the Confederate army as Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel ist Kentucky Regiment; afterward 3& aide-de-camp to President Davis, with 
the rank of Colonel, and was captured with him at the close of the war. He has 
written a number of fugitive poems and historical pamphlets, but his chief work is A 
Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, just published by Appleton & Co, N.Y. Since 
1867 he has been Professor of History and Literature, and Lecturer on the Science of 
Law, in Washington and Lee University. 



OUR LANGUAGE. 

IF language be, as we know it is, one of the most consider- 
able of the intelligent vehicles of historical facts and condi- 
tions at our command, if it be " the outward appearance of the 
intellect of nations," then certainly, the language of our land 
and our day must needs engage the close attention of whomso- 
ever would make himself acquainted with the condition of our 
intelligence and the degree and quality of our enlightenment. 
And conversely, if we have a culture which, as is claimed, is 
any wise peculiar and indigenous, our language will reflect 
that peculiarity, will serve as a proof of it, and a measure 
whereby to test whether it be excellent or the opposite. There 
is an architecture of speech just as there is an architecture of 
houses, and each people has in a greater or less degree its own 



359 READING AND ORATORY. 

peculiar style, both of language and of roof-tree, to which it is 
guided and within which it is constrained, by the needs of its 
congenerous instincts, by climate, habits, and idiosyncrasies. 

The student of language has not gone very far upon his 
search for the laws of its origin and its mutations, has not ex- 
amined very closely the circumstances of its inner lit'e, before 
he becomes vividly impressed with the conception of how many 
vital forces are actively at work within it, and how peculiarly a 
living thing speech is. He comes at once to feel that while it 
is a treasure-house and depository of wisdom and experience in 
things enacted, it is in a still greater degree an operative mint 
and assay-house, wherein the rude bullion of thought is purified, 
moulded, stamped, and valued for currency in the social mart. 
It is, moreover, the autograph registry of our daily condition, 
as sensitive as an electrometer, as unerring as a chemist's scales. 
It is the test of a man, and the criterion of a people. As has 
been said by a master in its uses, " Language most shows a 
man: speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most 
retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent 
of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so 
true as his speech." The revelation it makes of the individual 
man, it more than corroborates of the man collective, and so- 
ciety would have no consecutive existence without the inter- 
vention of speech. 

Being such, so living, so transient in the reflections, so in- 
stantaneous in catching the shape and color of every impres- 
sion, speech must change constantly, and must change, if not 
for the better, then for the worse. Its growth being uninter- 
mittent, if it cannot grow upward it must grow downward; if it 
cannot spread to the right, it must spread to the left; if it be 
debarred from the assimilation of good material, it must be suf- 
fered to assimilate bad. " The growth of language cannot be 
suppressed," says Prof. Fowler, "any more than can the genial 
activity of the human soul. Especially in our own country — 
in this wilderness of free minds — new thoughts and correspond- 
ing new expressions spring up spontaneously, to live their hour 
or be permanent." And he adds: "As our countrymen are 



BABY POWER. 351 

spreading Westward across the continent, and are brought into 
contact with other races and adopt new modes of thought, 
there is some danger that, in the use of their liberty, they may 
break loose from the laws of the English language, and become 
marked not only by one, but by a thousand shibboleths." 

To make frequent and searching inquiry, therefore, into the 
condition of our speech, and to see wherein it is advancing, and 
wherein retrograding, should seem to be the duty of every stu- 
dent in the land who is sedulous to preserve, for his own use 
and for the use of those who may come after him, a proper and 
adequate vehicle of American thought, a sweet, flexible, digni- 
fied, and competent medium for uttering ourselves to one an- 
other and to the world. Such is that English language which 
has been handed down to us, a priceless hereditament, out of 
the past. Such should likewise be that English language which 
is to go down from us to the unborn millions of freemen with 
whom this land shall finally teem. 

M. SCHELE DE VERE. 

The distinguished philologist and author, Maximilian Schele De Vere, Ph. D., LL. 
D. (Berlin), was born near Wexio, Sweden, November i, 1820. He entered the military 
and afterward the diplomatic service of Prussia, but emigrated to the United States, 
and was appointed in 1844 Professor of Modern Languages in the University of Vir- 
ginia, a position he still holds. As an author he has been most prolific, having published 
Outlines 0/ Comparative Philology (1853), Stray Leaves from the Book of Nature (xZ^S), 
Studies in English (1867), A Series of French Grammars and Readers (\Z(if)^ Gram- 
mar of the Spanish Language, The Great Empress, a novel (1869), IVonders of the 
Deep (1869), Americanisms (1871), The English of the New World (1873)— works which 
have been received with great favor. Many translations have been made by him from 
current European literature, among others, Spielhagen's Probleinatic C'laracters {i86g). 
Through Night to Light (1869), and The Hohenstcins (1870). He is, besides, a constant 
contributor to the literary and philological reviews, magazines, and journals of Europe 
and .\merica. The learned bodies to which he belongs are too numerous to specify in 
full; he is a member of Am. Philological Association, Royal Oriental Society, Histori- 
cal Society of Pennsylvania, and Hon. Cor. Mem. Academy of Sciences of Sweden, 
and of the French Academy. 



BABY POWER. 



SIX little feet to cover, 
Six little hands to fill: 
Tumbling out in the clover, 
Stumbling over the hill. 



352 READING AND ORATORY. 

Six little stockings ripping, 

Six little shoes half worn, 
Spite of that promised whipping, 

Skirts, shirts, and aprons torn! 
Bugs and humble-bees catching. 

Heedless of bites and stings, — 
Walls and furniture scratching. 

Twisting off buttons and strings. 
Into the sugar and flour, 

Into the salt and meal, 
Their royal baby power 

All through the house we feel! 
Behind the big stove creeping, 

To steal the kindling-wood; 
Into the cupboard peeping, 

To hunt for "somesin dood." 
The dogs they tease to snarling, 

The chickens know no rest. 
While the old cook calls them " darling," 

And loves each one the "best." 
Smearing each other's faces 

With smut or blacking-brush. 
To forbidden things and places 

Always making a rush. 
Over a chair or table 

They'll fight, — and kiss again 
When told of slaughtered Abel, 

Or cruel, wicked Cain! — 
All sorts of mischief trying 

On sunny days — in-doors; 
And then perversely crying 

To rush out when it pours. 
A raid on Grandma making 

— In spite her nice new cap- 
Its strings for bridles taking, 

While riding on her lap. 



BABY POWER. 353 

Three rosebud mouths beguiling, 

PrattUng the livelong day; 
Six sweet eyes on me smiling, 

Hazel, and blue, and gray. 
Hazel — with heart light sparkling, 

Too happy we trust to fade; 
Blue — 'neath long lashes darkling, 

Like violets in the shade; 
Gray — full of earnest meaning, 

A dawning light so fair 
Of woman-life beginning, 

We dread the noontide glare 
Of eartAly strife and passion 

May spoil its tender glow, 
Change its celestial fashion. 

As earth-stains change the snow. 
Six little clasped hands lifted. 

Three white brows upward turned, 
One prayer, thrice Heavenward drifted 

To Him who never spurned 
The lisp of lips where laughter, 

Fading away in prayer. 
Leaves holy twilight — after 

A noon of gladness there. 
Three little heads all sunny 

To pillow and bless at night — 
Riotous Aleck, and Dunnie, 

Jennie so bonnie and bright. 
Three souls immortal slumber, ' 

Crowned by that golden hair; 
When Christ his flock shall number. 

Will all my lambs be there ? 
Now with the stillness round me 

I bow my head and pray: 
"Since this faint heart hath found Thee, 

Suffer them not to stray. 



354 READING AND ORATORY. 

Up to the shining portal, 

Over life's stormy tide, 
Treasures I bring immortal; 

Saviour, be Thou my guide, 

MRS. ROSA VERTNER JEFFREY. 



THE HERO OF THE COMMUNE. 

*' /^ ARQONl You, yozi 
V_T Snared along with this cursed crew? 
(Only a child, and yet so bold, 
Scarcely as much as ten years old!) 
Do you hear? do you know 

Why the gens d'armes put you there, in the row, 
You with those Commune wretches tall, 
With your face to the wall?" 

"X/iow? To be sure I know! Why not? 

We're here to be shot; 
And there, by the pillar's the very spot. 

Fighting for France, my father fell: 
Ah, well!— 
That's just the way / would choose to fall, 
With my dack to the wall!" 

("Sacre! Fair, open fight, I say. 

Is something right gallant in its way. 

And fine for warming the blood; but who 
Wants wolfish work like this to do? 

Bah! 'tis a butcher's business!) Howl 

(The boy is beckoning to me now: 

I knew that his poor child's heart would fail, 
Yet his cheek's not pale): 

Quick! say your say, for don't you see 

When the Church-clock yonder tolls out Three, 
You are all to be shot? 



THE POWER OF PRAYER. 355 

— What? 
^Excuse you one moment!'' O, ho, ho! 
Do you think to fool z. gen d'arme so?" 

*' But, sir, here's a watch that a friend, one day, 
(My father's friend), just over the way, 
Lent me; and if you'll let me free — 
It still lacks seven minutes of Three — 
I'll come, on the word of a soldier's son, 
Straight back into line, when my errand's done." 

"Ha, ha! No doubt of it! Off! Begone! 
(Now, good St. Dennis, speed him on! 
The work will be easier since he's saved; 
For I hardly see how I coicld have braved 
The ardor of that innocent eye, 

As he stood and heard, 

While I gave the word, 
Dooming him like a dog to die.") 

"In time? Well, thanks, that my desire 
Was grinted; and now, I am ready: — Fire! 

One word! — that's all! 
— You'll let me turn my back to the wall?" 

"Parbleu! Come out of the line, I say, 
Come out! (Who said that his name was Ney?) 
Ha! France will hear of him yet one day!" 

MARGARET J. PRESTON. 



THE PO^A/'ER OF PRAYER; 

OR, THE FIRST STEAMBOAT UP THE ALABAMA. 

YOU, Dinah ! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does 
meet. 
De Lord, He made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat, 
Umph, dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' ole nigger's feet. 



356 READING AND ORATORY. 

It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June, 
I 'clar, I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de fiddle soon! 
Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de 
moon. 

Well, ef dis nigger is been blin' for fo'ty year or mo', 

Dese ears, dey sees de world, like th'u' de cracks dat's in de 

do'. 
For de Lord has built dis cabin wid de winders 'hind and 'fo'. 

I know my front ones is stopped up, and things is sort o' dim. 
But den, th'u' dem temptations vain won't leak in on ole Jim! 
De back ones shows me earth enough, aldo' dey's mons'ous 
slim. 

And as for Hebben, — bless de Lord, and praise His holy 

name! — 
Dat shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same 
As ef dat cabin hadn't nar a plank upon de frame! 

Who call rati Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you hyar 
Sombody hoU'in' "//f<?, Jim, hoo?" My Sarah died las' y'ar; 
Js dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim f'om hyar ? 

My stars! dat can't be Sarah — Shuh! jes' listen, Dinah, now! 
What kin be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row ? — 
Fus' bellerin, like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow ? 

De Lord 'a' massy sakes alive! jes' hear, — Ker — woof! Ker — 

woof! 
De debble's comin' round dat bend, he's comin', shuh enuff, 
A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof! 

I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run 

away; 
I'm gwine to stan' stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day. 
You screech, and howl, and swish de water, Satan! Let us 

pray: 



THE POWER OF PRAYER. 35/ 

hebbenly Mahs'r, what thou wiliest dat mus' be jes' so, 
And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger s boun' to go. 
Den, Lord, please take ole Jim^ and lef young Dinah hyar below! 

Scuse Dinah, scuse her, Mahs'r; for she's sich a littte chile, 

She hardly jes" begin to scramble up de home-yard stile. 

But dis ole traveller s feet been tired dis many a many a mile. 

I'se wufless as de rotten pole of las' year s fodder-stack. 

De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hyar 'em crack and crack ? 

1 can't sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas breakin o' my back. 



What use the wheel when hub and spokes is warped and split and 

rotten ? 
What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked my 

cotton ? 
I'se like a word dat somebody done said, atid den forgotten. 

But Dinah! Shuh! dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry-tree, 

De sap's jis' risin' in her; she do grow owdaciouslee — 

Lord, ef you's clarin de underbrush, doti't cut her down — cut me! 

I would not proud presume — but yet I'll boldly make reques', 
Sence Jacob had dat ivastlin-match, I, too, gwine do my bes' ; 
When Jacob got all underholt, de Lord He answered Yes! 

And what for waste de vittles noiv, and th'ow away de bread, 
Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald head? 
T'ink of de 'conomy, Mahs'r, ef dis ole Jim was dead! — 

Stop; ef I don't believe de Debbie's gone on up de stream! 
Jes' now he squealed down dar: — hush; dat's a mighty weakly 

scream! 
Yes, sir, he's gone, he's gone; — he snort way off, like in a 

dream ! 

glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high! 

De Debbie's fa'rly skeered to def, he done gone flyin' by; 

1 know'd he could'n' stan' dat pra'r, I felt my Mahs'r nigh! 



358 READING AND ORATORY. 

You, Dinah; ain't you 'shamed now, did you didn't trust to 

grace? 
I heerd you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he showed his face! 
You fool, you t'ink de Debbie couldn't heat joti in a race? 

I tell you, Dinah, jes' as sure as you is standin' dar, 

When folks start prayin', answer-angels drops down th'u' de 

a'r. 
Yea, Dinah, whar 'ould you be now, exceptin' fur dat pra'r? 

SIDNEY and CLIFFORD LANIER. 



RE-INTERMENT OF THE CAROLINA DEAD 
FROM GETTYSBURG. 

THE mournful office which has summoned us hither waits to 
be performed. Let us hasten to remove these relics of un- 
conquered patriots from a strange atmosphere less free than the 
air of the sepulchre. And if we have abandoned the last hope 
of maintaining their principles, if we are prepared to give up 
everything for which they died, let us discharge this ofifice for 
them with the feelings of those who are interring their principles 
with their bones — of those who are solemnizing the funeral-rites, 
and burying the corpse, of Liberty. Let us place no emblem 
of hope above their heads, but having in the silence of death 
struck the last stroke of the spade upon their graves, retire from 
the scene as men withdraw from a field on which all has been 
lost. 

But if it be our determination that we will cease to cherish the 
sacred principles which these men consecrated with their blood 
only when we cease to live, then let us, comrades, fellow-citi- 
zens, lovers of liberty, with reverent mien and tender hands 
consign all that remains of our brethren to their coveted resting- 
place in the bosom of their loved Carolina. And as we cover 
them for their last sleep, let us bury with them every proposal 
to us to apostatize from their principles, every tendency even 



SOUTH CAROLINA SPORTS. 359 

to compromise them, every desire to recover position, wealth, or 
ease, at the sacrifice of honor, virtue, and truth. Let us lay 
them down in hope; and, as each modest stone rears its head 
above them, inscribe upon it a Resurgam — the token of our 
faith that their principles, now trodden into dust, will rise 
again, the symbol of our invincible resolution that these men 
shall not altogether have died in vain. 

Heroes of Gettysburg! Champions of Constitutional rights! 
Martyrs for regulated liberty! Once again, farewell! Descend 
to your final sleep with a people's benedictions upon your 
names! Rest ye here. Soldiers of a defeated — God grant it 
may not be a wholly lost — Cause! We may not fire a soldier's 
salute over your dust, but the pulses of our hearts beat like 
mufiled drums, and every deep-drawn sigh breathes a low and 
passionate requiem. Memory will keep her guard of honor 
over "your graves; Love will bedew them with her tears; Faith 
will draw from them her inspiration for future sacrifices; and 
Hope, kindling her torch at the fires which glow in your ashes, 
will, in its light, look forward to a day when a people once 
more redeemed and enfranchised will confess that your death 
was not in vain. 

JOHN L. GIRARDEAU. 



SOUTH CAROLINA SPORTS— A BEAR HUNT 
AT CHEE-HA. 

WE assembled at "Social Hall," and sending the drivers 
and hounds to enter the wood from the direction of 
Smilie's, proceeded to occupy all the prominent passes of the 
" White Oak," stretching along, at intervals, from the flood-gate 
dam to Sandy Run. My own stand was taken at the head of a 
long pond, or chain of ponds, which, approaching closely to the 
" White Oak," stretched away towards the southeast, until it 
found its outlet in Wright's Bay. I stood at the head of this 
pond, on a knoll that, piercing the swamp to the distance of one 



360 READING AND ORATORY. 

hundred and fifty yards, was flanked on either side by deep 
morasses, affording very thick cover. 

Standing among some dwarf trees that crowned the summit 
of this knoll, and which served as a partial screen, with my 
bridle-reins thrown carelessly over my arm, I was listening to 
the cry of the hounds, as, at great distance, and at slow inter- 
vals, they challenged on a trail, — when I caught a glimpse of a 
large dark object moving on my right; a second object was per- 
ceived, but still indistinct, and covered by the thicket. Pres- 
ently a third and fourth were seen, and as they emerged from 
the dense cover, I perceived to my great surprise that they were 
bears! They were crossing the foot of the knoll on which I 
stood, from the right to the left. I leaped into the saddle, and 
as the ground in front was favorable to a horse, dashed at them, 
to cut them off, if possible, before they had gained the cover 
on the left. I had not run more than half my career, when I 
reined in my horse; for I perceived that two of the bears had 
changed their course, and were coming towards me. Their ob- 
ject, I presume, was not attack, but escape from the hounds, 
whose distant baying they had heard. 

They ran straight for me, however, until they had approached 
within twenty yards; when the leading bear, a large one, stop- 
ped and looked me full in the face. A yearling bear followed, 
and, as if prompted by curiosity, reared himself on his hind legs 
and looked inquisitively over the shoulder of the leader. I 
seized the moment when their heads were thus brought in line, 
and almost in contact, and drew aim directly between the eyes 
of the larger bear. It occurred to me at the instant that my 
left-hand barrel was charged with shot of unusually large size, 
and I accordingly touched the left-hand trigger. Instantly the 
foremost bear disappeared, and the second, uttering a cry of dis- 
tress, rolled over among the bushes, so as to assure me of its 
being seriously hurt; but the glimpse I had of him was so im- 
perfect that I did not fire my second barrel. 

Riding to the spot, imagine my surprise at seeing the large 
bear motionless, and in the same upright posture which he 
maintained before I had fired; his head, only, had sunk upon 



SOUTH CAROLINA SPORTS. 361 

his knees! He was stone dead! — two shot had pierced his brain. 
His death had been instantaneous, — and the sUght support of a 
fallen tree-had enabled him to retain a posture by which he yet 
simulated life. In searching for his wounded companion, I 
was guided to the edge of the morass by the torn earth and 
trampled grass; but there lost all trace of him in the tangled 
underwood. Diverging a little to the right, and following a 
faintly-traced path that penetrated the thicket, I again came 
upon a trail. Evidently there were several that had taken this 
direction: here was the foot-print, freshly stamped in the muddy 
soil, — here were the logs which they had leaped on their retreat 
yet dripping with the water splashed on them, — but the bears 
had passed onward, and the ground became more and more 
difficult, until it prevented all further advance. 

I was now in the heart of the swamp, and I sounded my 
horn to call around me the hunters and hounds; the first for 
consultation, the second for pursuit. No horn replied! I 
shouted, — no answ^er! I listened, — and began to understand 
why my signals were unnoticed. The hounds had roused a 
deer, and were bearing down towards my left; and none of the 
field were willing, by leaving their stands, or answering a blast 
whose import they could not understand, to forfeit their own 
chance of sport. Nearer and nearer comes the cry, — they are 
skirting the thicket, and are driving directly to my stand! 

"Well! — let them come! I have one barrel yet in reserve," — 
and with this reflection, I make the best of my way back to the 
position I had just occupied. The chase turned to the left; 
presently a shot is fired in that direction, but no horn sounds 
the signal of success! — " Ha! the dogs are gaining the pine 
ridge in the rear, and may soon be lost, — that must not be," — 
and I dash away at full speed to intercept them. It was no 
easy task to beat them off, heated as they were in the chase, and 
stimulated by the report of the gun. I rode across their track, . 
and shouted, and blew my horn: but all in vain, — when the 
drivers came up opportunely to my assistance. By din*- of 
chiding, and smacking of whips, they at last succeed in drawing 
off the hounds, that were almost frantic with eagerness to pur- 



362 READING AND ORATORY. 

sue the deer! The horns then sound a call, and the hunters 
come dropping in. 

"Why have you stopped the dogs?" said the Laird, with 
something of brusquerie in his manner. 

"Because they are out of the drive; and, if not stopped, 
may be lost for the day." 

"But I hav-. shot a buck," said he. 

"Where is he?" 

"Gone on," said he, "but I'm sure they'll catch him in short 
order." 

" So very sure! — found blood then?" 

"No." 

" How far off was he when you fired?" 

"Oh, for that matter, he was jumping over me!" 

"Then he carries shot bravely," said I: "but before we fol- 
low this buck, — who, by your showing, cannot possibly go far — 
there is another business for the hounds: a nobler quarry is 
before us! — I have shot a bear!" 

"A bear!" cried the hunters, in astonishment. "You joke! 
we never saw one in these woods!" 

"True, nevertheless! Ride up with the hounds, and it will 
be hard but I will show you blood!" 

And away we went at a rattling pace for the scene of action: 
some faces expressing confidence, and some mistrust. As we 
neared the spot, — 

"No joke, by gracious!" cried G — (his piety forbidding any 
stronger exclamation). " Look at the dogs! — how the hair is 
bristling upon their backs: they smell the bear at this moment!" 

And so, indeed, they did; for there he stood before them! — 
not fallen, but crouching, as if prepared to spring, — yet, as we 
have said, stone dead! It was pleasant to witness the surprise, 
and to receive the congratulations of my sporting friends, as 
they crowded around the bear, — the horses showing uneasiness, 
however, and the dogs' mistrust amounting almost to terror! 

While the drivers were encouraging the hounds to approach 
and familiarize themselves with the scent of the bear, — which 
they were baying at a distance, as if they feared his quietude 



SOUTH CAROLINA SPORTS. 363 

might be counterfeit, — I dismounted and reloaded my left-hand 
barrel. 

"And now, my friends," said I, on remounting, "we have 
glorious sport ahead! — a wounded bear is within fifty yards of 
us." 

" Now we know you joke," said they in a breath: "you fired 
but one barrel." 

" But that," said I, " had bullets for two. I have shot another, 
as sure as a gun! — but that (glancing at him of the buck) is not 
always the highest assurance! look here, at these bushes, torn 
up by his struggles, — and this blood! He made his way into that 
thicket, and there we'll find him! Let us surround it, — set on 
the dogs, and then hurra! for the quickest shot and the surest 
marksman! only take care, as we stand so close, that we do 
not shoot each other!" 

The hounds were now brought to the trail, while we shout 
and clap our hands in encouragement. But they were panic- 
stricken, and would not budge a foot in advance of the drivers. 

" Let us ride in," said Loveleap. 

" Done," said I, and we placed ourselves, with G — and C — 
in the first line, while the other hunters, moving on the flanks, 
were in position to give their fire, if he broke out. 

"Here he is!" said C — , before we had advanced twenty 
yards into the thicket. 

"Where?" 

" Before me. I cannot see him, but my horse does, for he 
snorts and refuses to advance!" 

We close our ranks, with finger on trigger, and hearts beating 
with expectation; but there was no room for chase or fight, — the 
bear lay dead before iisH A grand hurra burst from us! — a 
grand flourish of horns! — and my hunting-cap was whirled aloft 
on the muzzle of my gun ! — while the drivers tore their way into the 
thicket on foot, and dragged out the second bear to keep com- 
pany with the first. I was delighted, — exalted, — overmuch, 
perhaps! — but my pride was soon to have its rebuke. 

" Well," said Splash, slapping his thigh with emphasis, and 
looking from the bears, which for some moments he had been 



364 READING AND ORATORY. 

eying, to the piece of ordnance which he had been carrying 
by way of gun, as if to that alone should have belonged the 
credit of such a shot, — " You are the luckiest 7nan I ever saw in 
my lifer 

What a damper! — to tell a man who was priding himself 
on having made a magnificent shot, that it was nothing but- 
luck. 

"I'll tell you what, Splash," said I, "to have met the bears 
was my good luck, I grant you; but to have disposed of them 
thus artistically, excuse me!" — and my wounded self-love led 
me into a recital of incidents perfectly true, yet so nearly akin 
to vainglorious boasting, that even now I redden beneath my 
visor at the recollection! '* It was by good luck then, that I 
once killed two bucks with one barrel! Loveleap,you saw this! 
By good luck that, at another time, I killed two does with one 
barrel! — then, too, you were present. By good luck that I 
killed in two days' hunt five deer in five shots — not missing a 
shot! — By good luck that I killed thirty wild ducks at a fire! 
(but why speak of that? any one can shoot in a flock!) It is 
by good luck, I suppose, that I throw up a piece of silver coin, 
and batter it while in the air into the shape of a pewter mug! — 
or, laying my gun upon a table before me, fling up two oranges 
successively before I touch the gun, then snatch it up, and 
strike them both before they reach the earth, one with each 
barrel! Luck — luck — nothing but luck! Be it so; but when 
you have beaten this shot, and killed three bears with one 
barrel, let me know it, I pray you, and I will try my luck 
again! But while we waste time in talk, the scent gets cold. 
There are two other bears which took that footpath there; 
let us pursue them, — and good luck to the expertest sportsman 
in the field. I shall not fire another shot to-day!" 

WILLIAM ELLIOTT. 

WiLUAM Elliott was bom in Beaufort, S. C, in 1788, of Revolutionary stock noted 
for patriotism and integrity. Stephen Elliott, the naturalist, Stephen Elliott, Bishop of 
Georgia, and Gen. Elliott, of Fort Sumpter fame, were of the same family. He was 
educated at Harvard, ranking among the first of his class, and maintained his scholarly 
tastes to the end of his life. He served for many years in both branches of the Legisla- 
ture, and acted as Commissioner for the State at the Paris Exposition in 1S56. He acted 



LITTLE GIFFIN. 365 

with the Union party in 1833, and wrote some of the most vigorous papers of the day 
against the Nullification theory. In i860 he was a strong secessionist, and he died, at the 
age of seventy-five, in the midst of the civil war. A planter of large means, he loved to 
dispense a genial hospitality, and to recount with matchless skill his triumphs of field 
and flood. Our sea-island poet, Mr. Grayson, thus alludes, in his Hireling and Slave, 
to his love of field sports: 

"Not Elliott, early trained with easy skill, 
Old Walton's various offices to fill, 
The sport to lead, the willing ear beguile, 
And charm with rare felicity of style, 
The straining line with nicer art employs, 
With keener zest the manly sport enjoys, 
Or takes the fish and fortunes of the day. 
Sunshine or shower, more buoyantly gay." 

— Rev. C, C. Pinckney, 



LITTLE GIFFIN. 

OUT of the focal and foremost fire! — 
Out of the hospital walls, as dire! — 
Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene; 
Eighteenth battle, and he, sixteen — 
Spectre! such as you seldom see, — 
Little Giffin, of Tennessee! 

** Take him and welcome!" the surgeons said — 
Little the Doctor can help the Dead! — 
So, we took him! — and brought him where 
The balm was sweet in the summer air; 
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed — 
Utter Lazarus, heel to head! 

And we watched the war with abated breath- 
Skeleton Boy against Skeleton Death— 
Months of torture, how many such! — 
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch; 
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye 
Told of a spirit that wouldtit die! 



366 READING AND ORATORY. 

And didn't — nay, more! — in death's despite, 
The crippled skeleton "learned to write!" 
Dear Mother: at first, of course — and then, 
Dear Captain: inquiring about the men. 
Captain's answer: — Of eighty -and- five, 
Giffin and I are left alive. 

Word of gloom from the War, one day; — 
Johnston pressed at the front, they say; — 
Little Gififin was up and away! 
A tear — his first — as he bade good-by, 
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye; 
"I'll WRITE, if spared!" — there was news of the fight, 
But none of Giffin! — He did not write! 

I sometimes fancy that were I king 

Of the princely Knights of the golden ring, — 

With the song of the minstrel in mine ear. 

And the tender legend that trembles here, — 

I'd give the best on his bended knee, 

The whitest soul of my chivalry. 

For — Little Giffin, of Tennessee! 

F. O. TICKNOR. 



FEDERAL DESPOTISM IN MARYLAND. 

SIR, what efforts have I not made, with every circumstance 
of respect for the dignity and rules of this House, and in 
every form of application attempted to gain a consideration of 
these heavy, insupportable grievances of Maryland; and what 
single one has received even the cold ceremony of a reception? 
Not one! But all rejected with insulting haste, or "laid upon 
th^ table," to rest there forever. 

Maryland is treated here, too, as a subjugated province. 
Stripped of every attribute of her sovereignty, a caucus of revo- 



FEDERAL DESPOTISM IN MARYLAND. 367 

lutionary fanatics has appointed our rulers, and Ohio and 
Illinois furnished the proconsuls of our conquered State — 
Messrs. Bingham and Lovejoy. If the Federal Constitution 
had guaranteed to Maryland the curse of a despotism, instead 
of a " Republican form of Government," its duty in this respect 
could not have been more faithfully kept. 

But, surrounded as she is by misfortunes, it is now, and 
shall continue to be the glory of Maryland, that her prostrate 
constitution and laws, her subjugated people, attest their spirit 
and patriotism, in meeting and defying the encroachments of 
arbitrary power, that they were too feeble by force to oppose. 
With true Republican pride, her citizens can repeat her noble 
declaration of rights, that *' the doctrine of non-resistance to 
arbitrary power is absurd, slavish, and destructive to the 
peace and happiness of mankind." And, repeating it, appeal 
to Heaven as witness that its precious injunction has been 
faithfully kept, and yet abides firmly in their hearts: and I 
must, sir, in a spirit of admonition, now and here declare my 
conviction, that the people of Maryland will and ought, by arms, 
to defend their Constitutional rights, if longer trampled on; 
and let the bloodshed rest on the souls of the aggressors, or the 
authority that encourages or permits their lawlessness. 

Mr. Speaker, Maryland, though now prostrate, will again 
rise. When passion and brute force shall have passed away, or 
be driven from her soil, and the benign genius of free govern- 
ment returns again to preside over her destinies; then, her own 
people, if united and organized, will be able themselves to de- 
termine her lot. Let them be assured of this, and also be pre- 
pared. And then, also, comes a retribution. And while we 
may hope that her faithless children, who have stood indiffer- 
ent to her fate, may be forgiven; yet, sir, they must not be for- 
gotten; but those self-abasing wretches who, with parricidal 
hands, have helped to strike their own State's sovereignty down, 
shall rest in the full assurance of that day of account that must 
come, in the sure providence of God. And, sir, instructed by 
the language of the present Secretary of State, addressed to my 
constituents, in a lecture delivered by him on the 2 2d of De- 



368 READING AND ORATORY. 

cember, 1848, "if a separation from the Union shall ever be 
necessary, let us hope that long habits of discipline and mutual 
affection may enable the American people to add another and 
final lesson on the excellence of Republics — that of dividing 
without violence, and reconstructing without the loss of liberty." 
Heaven grant that such may be the happy destiny of Mary- 
land. 

HENRY MAY. 



CLAY AND CALHOUN CONTRASTED. 

IT would appear that government, like the physical world, is 
kept in its true orbit by opposing forces. In all republics 
there have been two sets of opinions in active antagonism — 
the one looking to the isolation of the different portions, the 
other to a broad and vital unity. The Grecian republics fell, 
according to Tacitus, because they spurned their subjects as 
aliens. The longevity of the Roman Republic was at- 
tained by the opposite policy; its power extended from Ger- 
many to the Nile, from Britain to the Euphrates, and its 
laws and language were imposed upon the most opposite 
varieties of mankind. Modified by the differing circumstances 
of time, and position, and character — the introduction of the 
representative principle, the peculiar relations of our State and 
General Governments, we find the same antagonism pervading 
our whole political system. 

Mr. Clay took his position as an American — his first op- 
ponent was Virginia's brilliant and eccentric son, John Ran- 
dolph of Roanoke. The contest between these opposing 
leaders was irregular, and oftener indicated personal hostil- 
ity than political difference. Reconciliation fortunately came 
at the close of this contest, when Mr. Calhoun appeared 
as the calmer and more philosophical expounder of the 
extreme doctrines of State rights. Divested of its personal 
features, the antagonism between the Senators of South Caro- 
lina and Kentucky was as marked as in the other instance. The 



CLAY AND CALHOUN CONTRASTED. . 369 

one gloried in the contemplation of the vastness o f his country 
— the other thought it necessary to watch with closest scrutiny, 
if not suspicion, the delicate relations of the different members. 
Mr. Clay, a native of one State and the adopted child of an- 
other, considered the divisions between the States as lines which 
policy drew, but which affection should not regard. Mr. 
Calhoun watched them as jealously as the founder of Rome 
guarded his growing walls, which not e\en a brother might leap 
over with impunity. One expended his time and talents in the 
curious dissection of the body politic, tracing its wonderful, 
and, to him, too often, its fearful anatomy; the other sought to 
endue it with health and strength, make it instinct with life and 
radiant with beauty. Or, if I may add another illustration, the 
South Carolinian, in his more hopeful moments, regarded the 
Union as a constellation, deriving its lustre and grandeur from 
the brightness of each particular star; the Kentuckian found the 
image of his country in some grand river like our giant Missis- 
sippi, each valley sending its rill, and lofty mountains speeding 
their torrents to swell its rapid tide. On its banks he saw fer- 
tile fields and happy homesteads — the blended sounds of mani- 
fold industry went up from pleasant villages and stately cities; 
on its bosom were countless vessels laden with the products and 
fabrics of a land framed in the prodigality of nature — and thus 
crowned with the trophies of Agriculture and of Art, he saw- 
it rushing to the sea, and delivering to white-winged Commerce 
the bread to feed and the raiment to clothe a world. 

Posterity will do justice to both of these great men — to the 
political speculations of the one, and the remarkable executive 
ability of the other — for therein was the difference which made 
their paths more and more widely divergent. One was a states- 
man, grappling with present difficulties; the other a dreaming 
philosopher, following principles as the Prince of Eastern fable 
followed his arrow beyond the habitations of man, beyond the 
bounds of probability. In their temperaments this antagonism 
was equally manifest. One was the oracle of bounding hope — 

"And his eye kindled 
With the prophecy of glorious years." 



370 READING AND ORATORY. 

The other became the prophet of woe, and trembled, Hke the 
ancient Pythoness, under the agony of his own forebodings — 

"There was a listening fear in his regard, 
As if calamity had but begun; 
As if the vanward clouds of evil days 
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear 
Was, with its stored thunder, laboring up." 

One went down to the grave in gloom and sorrow, bewailing 
the fate of the " South — the poor South" — the other, with his 
latest articulation, blessed that Union which he believed was 
to be the assurance of happiness to an "undefined, unlimited, 
endless, perpetual posterity." 

B. JOHNSON BARBOUR. 



THE BAND IN THE PINES. 

OH, band in the pine-wood, cease! 
Cease with your splendid call; 
The living are brave and noble. 
But the dead were bravest of all! 

They throng to the martial summons, 

To the loud, triumphant strain; 
And the dear bright eyes of long-dead friends 

Come to the heart again! 

They come with the ringing bugle, 

And the deep drum's mellow roar: 
Till the soul is faint with longing 

For the hands we clasp no more! 

Oh, band in the pine- wood, cease! 

Or the heart will melt in tears. 
For the gallant eyes and the smiling lips. 

And the voices of old years! 

JOHN ESTEN COOKE. 



READING AND ORATORY. 37 1 



FEDERAL PROTECTION ON THE RlO GRANDE. 

IT is said, sir, that the people of Texas desire to involve this 
Government in a war with Mexico, that they may avenge 
the wrongs they have endured, and profit by the expenditures 
of the Government. No assertion could be more unfounded. 
If any such feeling existed among any considerable number of 
people of that State, ample opportunity and abundant provo- 
cation have already been given to induce them to manifest it. 
The wish, and I may add the anxiety, of the people of Texas 
to secure the enactment of a law by Congress, which will com- 
pel the authorities of the Government to render protection, 
springs from no unworthy motive. Surely, the highest evidence 
of the falsity of such assertion will become apparent when we 
contrast it with the past conduct of that people. Sir, they have 
submitted for many years to these raids and indignities; they 
have witnessed the murder of their fellow-citizens, the destruc- 
tion or removal of thousands of dollars' worth of property, 
and the surrender of one of the finest sections of the State to 
a reign of terror and crime; and no act of insubordination to 
the obligations of this Government to a friendly neighboring 
power can be attributed to them. 

We all know that Texas has the strength and the will to 
avenge her wrongs. In the days of her weakness she humbled 
the pride of Mexico, secured an empire from it, and dropped 
it into the lap of the United States. In her strength to-day 
she could sweep from the face of the earth that population 
which has so grievously wronged her, and secure tranquillity 
and repose for the future; but rather than violate the law of 
the land, by assuming the right and exercising the power which 
belongs to the General Government, she has awaited the hour 
when the national honor can no longer rest unvindicated and 
unasserted in her behalf. 

Sir, every consideration .which looks to the advancement of 
Texas in prosperity and greatness forbids any desire for war on 
our part, and especially a war with Mexico. Texas is now the 



372 READING AND ORATORY. 

great hope of the Union. It is larger than all New England, 
and embraces every variety of soil and production. It offers 
to the young of all the States, and the good people of all coun- 
tries, the finest inducements for immigration. Its advancement 
in wealth, population, and in all that tends to make a State 
rich and powerful, is attracting the attention of the whole 
country. Over two thousand miles of railway are now in suc- 
cessful operation. Immense forests of timber are yielding their 
treasures. Mineral resources, unsurpassed by those of any 
other State, are beginning to render rich reward to the laborer. 
Agricultural interests are extending their area and will soon de- 
monstrate the fact that Texas is capable of being ranked among 
the first producing States of the Union. Every train of cars 
which enters the State carries young, enterprising immigrants, 
seeking homes for life. 

Why should the people of Texas desire war, and of all wars, 
one with Mexico? If they desired to suspend the development 
of the grand resources of the State — stop the completion of its 
internal improvements — open up a vast and beautiful country 
beyond it, where the tide of immigration would inevitably flow 
— offer to her young men the ways of war with its vices, instead 
of preserving the ways of peace with its virtues — it might be 
truthfully said that the people of Texas desired a war with 
Mexico. War would inflict upon Texas the most serious evils, 
and her people deeply appreciate the importance of prevent- 
ing it. This Government has the power, and can effectually 
apply the means which will preserve peace; and nothing will 
more certainly accomplish it than the adoption of these resolu- 
tions, and a strict enforcement of them. 

D. B. CULBERSON. 



RELIGION NECESSARY TO GREATNESS OF 
CHARACTER. 

THAT Religion is necessary to the completeness of a 
character truly great, is an assertion which many may be 
reluctant to admit. If, however, we unroll the historic page 



RELIGION NECESSARY. 373 

and narrowly investigate the mighty names which fame has 
there recorded — names which live on in the memories and hearts 
of posterity — we shall find that the truly great have never been 
destitute of some proper sense of religion. True, they may 
have lived under a dark dispensation, their views of God may 
have been very inadequate and obscure, yet still, according to 
the measure of their light, they have acknowledged and revered 
Him, and reckoned impiety among the grossest of the vices. In 
Socrates and Plato we look not for the lucid knowledge and 
bright experience of St. John or of St. Paul, yet the one fell a 
martyr to his religious faith, and the other is said to have pro- 
phesied of the Messiah's coming. It is religion alone which 
gives dignity to man, and importance to human pursuits. 
Nothing, surely, is so degrading to our nature, and nothing is so 
well calculated to divest man of all nobility of soul, as the 
scepticism which questions his future existence — the infidelity 
which consigns the hope of immortality to the grave — and the 
sensuality which cuts off every aspiration after communion with 
God. For, what are all the attainments of learning — what all 
the triumphs — what all the successful competitions of trade — 
what all the wealth that avarice can hoard, to give dignity to 
a dying worm! 

Contrast the characters of those who have sought for great- 
ness apart from virtue with those who have acknowledged the truth 
and excellency of religion, and see where the advantage lies. 
Compare Caesar with Cato; or Strafford with Hampden; or Lord 
Jeffries with Sir Matthew Hale; or Napoleon with Washington; 
and what generous heart does not prefer the fame of those who 
were distinguished for virtue and religion? Does the world pay 
that homage to the names of Voltaire and Rousseau, Hume and 
Gibbon, which it readily accords to Sir Isaac Newton and to 
Locke? And if the records of all States, ancient and modern, 
were searched,in the long line of Statesmen who have served the 
throne, where can there -be found a name so faultless and 
illustrious as that of the Hebrew minister of Darius the Mede? 

They are the truly great, who blend the sympathies of hu- 
jnanity with the communicated graces of Divinity — who, stand- 



374 READING AND ORATORY. 

ing among men acknowledge no superior, and in the presence 
of God confess themselves the least of all. 

WHITEFOORD SMITH. 

Whitefoord Smith, D. D., was born in Charleston, S. C, November 7, 1812; entered 
the ministry of M. E. Church, 1832; elected Professor in Wofiford College in 1855, and 
Professor in South Carolina College in 1857, but declined; now Professor of English 
Literature in Wofford College. 



FLORENCE VANE. 

I loved thee long and dearly, 

Florence Vane; 
My life's bright dream and early 

Hath come again; 
I renew in my fond vision. 

My heart's dear pain, 
My hope, and thy derision, 

Florence Vane. 

The ruin lone and hoary, 

The ruin old, 
Where thou didst mark my story, 

At even told, — 
That spot — the hues Elysian 

Of sky and plain — 
I treasure in my vision, 

Florence Vane. 

Thou wast lovelier than the roses 

In their prime; 
Thy voice excelled the closes 

Of sweetest rhyme; 
Thy heart was as a river 

Without a main. 
Would I had loved thee never, 

Florence Vane. 



VINDICATION OF THE ARMY. 375 

But fairest, coldest wonder! 

Thy glorious clay 
Lieth the green sod under — 

Alas the day! 
And it boots not to remember 

Thy disdain — 
To quicken love's pale ember, 

Florence Vane. 

The lilies of the valley 

By young graves weep, 
The pansies love to dally 

Where maidens sleep. 
May their bloom, in beauty vying, 

Never wane, 
Where thine earthly part is lying, 

Florence Vane! 

PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 

Philip Pendleton Cooke, the brother of the novelist John Esten Cooke, was bom 
in Berkeley Co., Va., in 1816, and died in 1850. He graduated at Princeton, studied 
and practised law for many years, but early devoted himself to literary composition in 
prose and verse. His numerous contributions to the Southern Literary Messenger^ 
then edited by Poe, embraced poems, tales, criticisms, and sketches. His poems were 
collected and published under the title of Tlie Froissart Ballads. He was a man of 
real genius, and would have filled a large space in the eye of the literary world had he 
not died so sooa. 



VINDICATION OF THE ARMY. 

THE army, living and dead, are our cnvn flesh, our own 
blood, our own selves. The blessed bonds of family and 
kindred, and the ever-present voice of consciousness, bind us to 
the army, and rescue it at once from infamy and oblivion. Yes, 
dear brothers, rest sweetly, securely — you are safe; these bonds 
cannot be severed. See how tender, yet how indissoluble they 
are! Mother! the boy you kissed and sent away, and never 
kissed again — your Benjamin, your darling, who lies there — was 



376 READING AND ORATORY. 

he rebel or patriot? was he traitor or hero? Wife! Widow! 
that warrior whose sword you girt about him while his arms 
encircled you in that warm embrace, — the last, the very last, till 
they enfold you yonder — is his honor tainted or stainless? 

And now, living soldier-brothers, as we join hands about 
these graves, and look up to heaven together in this evening's 
holy hush, let us open our hearts' deepest depths to Him who 
made and knows them, and confess if we be traitors. But if 
we can place these hands upon these hearts, and call God to 
witness that they are not perjured, then let us swear that we 
will stand by these noble women, who stand so faithfully by our 
precious dead; — that we will teach our children and our chil- 
dren's children that these men fought and fell for the only 
principles upon which regulated Christian freedom can ever be 
established. Let us show them that conservatism at the North, 
and the world over, in these days is feeble, cautious, self-con- 
tradictory, because it has abandoned the only premises from 
which its conclusions can be deduced. Let us teach our chil- 
dren to test right and wrong, true and false, in God's great 
world, by something other than results which spend themselves 
and disappear in the brief space of a lifetime or a generation. 
Finally, let us explain to them the sacred work these noble 
women are doing, and make them swear they will perpetuate 
these associations. Let us bring them with us to these yearly 
memorials — and they are memorials, not ''^decorations." Let others 
decorate the graves of victors, we will reme?nber heroes. 

ROBERT STILES. 



THE OLD PIONEER. 

A DIRGE for the brave old pioneer! 
Knight-errant of the wood ! 
Calmly beneath the green sod here 

He rests from field and flood; 
The war-whoop and the panther's screams 
No more his soul shall rouse, 



THE OLD PIONEER. 377 

For well the aged hunter dreams 
Beside his good old spouse. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer ! 

Hushed now his rifle's peal; 
The dews of many a vanish'd year 

Are on his rusted steel; 
His horn and pouch lie mouldering 

Upon the cabin door, 
The elk rests by the salted spring, 

Nor flees the fierce wild boar. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer ! 

Old Druid of the West ! 
His offering was the fleet wild deer, 

His shrine the mountain's crest. 
Within his wildwood temple's space 

An empire's towers nod, 
Where erst, alone of all his race, 

He knelt to Nature's God. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer ! 

Columbus of the land! 
Who guided freedom's proud career 

Beyond the conquer'd strand; 
And gave her pilgrim sons a home 

No monarch's step profanes, 
Free as the chainless winds that roam 

Upon its boundless plains. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

The mufiled drum resound! 
A warrior is slumb'ring here 

Beneath his battle-ground. 
For not alone with beast of prey 

The bloody strife he waged. 
Foremost where'er the deadly fray 

Of savage combat raged. 



378 READING AND ORATORY. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

A dirge for his old spouse! 
For her who blessed his forest cheer, 

And kept his birchen house 
Now soundly by her chieftain may 

The brave old dame sleep on, 
The red man's step is far away. 

The wolf's dread howl is gone. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

His pilgrimage is done; 
He hunts no more the grizzly bear, 

About the setting sun. 
Weary at last of chase and life, 

He laid him here to rest. 
Nor recks he now what sport or strife 

Would tempt him further west. 

A dirge for the brave old pioneer! 

The patriarch of his tribe! 
He sleeps — no pompous pile marks where, 

No lines his deeds describe. 
They raised no stone above him here, 

Nor carved his deathless name — 
An empire is his sepulchre. 

His epitaph is Fame. 



A RECOLLECTION OF HIS YOUTH. 

I REMEMBER there was a frost just twenty-nine years ago 
this very day — the 8th of May, 1838. Ah! how far back 
my memory runs! How well I remember that day twenty- 
nine years ago! I was a little schoolboy then, boarding in the 
country, and walking to the village school, a distance of two 
miles. That morning I mastered a lesson before breakfast, 



A RECOLLECTION OF HIS YOUTH. 379 

sitting in a swing that hung out in the large, white, sandy, 
shady yard — sitting, swinging to and fro, with a slight, gentle 
motion, and conning my lesson, yet listening all the while to 
the low, soft music of the young poultry crying for their morn- 
ing meal. I was a little dreamer, even then; strangely enough, 
too — strangely for so young a dreamer — my thoughts turned to 
the past, not the future. 

The lesson finished, the book was laid in my lap, my arms 
were clasped around the poles which formed the swing, one 
foot keeping up the gentle swaying motion, by a regular, recur- 
ring, mechanical, and almost unconscious touch upon the 
ground; my head drooped upon my breast, and thought floated 
upon the sweet, plaintive sounds around me, away to the spot 
where reposed the ashes of my loved but iiwemembered dead. I 
was in the past, and yet not in the land of memory. Imagina- 
tion was picturing out the scenes of the old homestead, as best 
it could from the treasured materials of imperfect tradition. 
There was the log-house in which I was born, the garden, the 
orchard, the immense wild grapevine amid the great rocks at a 
little distance; and the spring, the glorious spring, bursting 
from a rock under a great bluff, and dashing and dancing down 
the valley in a bright stream, that sang as merrily as it danced. 
And I strayed back up the hill again in search of the living 
forms that moved amid the scene. Father, brothers, and sis- 
ters rose up before my eager eyes, but my deepest interest was 
centred in the tall form of a woman, still young and handsome, 
moving with a sedate grace, which bespoke the very sweet- 
ness of dignity, and selecting for her walk the very 
sweetest spots, with an unerring instinct that told of a heart at 
once deeply loving and deeply hallotved. She seemed to cast 
bright and hopeful gleams towards the "new house" rising un- 
finished from a clump of trees on the brow of a gentle slope. 
She had laid away some of her darlings among the cedars in 
the garden; but she was now beginning to emerge from the 
darker shades of poverty, and was about to secure a better /louse, 
a sweeter home, for the dear ones who were left to her love. 

But, ah ! the "new house" was destined to remain unfinished 



380 READING AND ORATORY. 

forever! The cedars in the garden! The lovely form pointed 
me to the cedars in the garden, and then faded from my view. 
I followed her pointing, and stood solitary and desolate among 
the cedars in the garden! Amid their deep, dark shade was a 
grave — her grave, already grass-grown from age! Lilies — sweet 
white lilies — were bending over it, and dropping their fragrance 
upon the sacred dust. — 

The boy in the swing uttered a low, deep moan, and burst 
into tears — tears of intense yearning for the unknown blessing 
of a mother's love ! 

LINTON STEPHENS. 



THE SOUTH ACCEPTS THE SITUATION. 

I HAVE attempted, Mr. Chairman, to state these views fully, 
in order that the Southern people, the people whom I in 
part represent here, shall be fully apprised of the precise 
character and force of the public opinion which bears upon 
their present condition and their future destiny. I shall en- 
deavor as a representative of the South to appreciate the value of 
these grave apprehensions. In doing so I shall speak as one 
who feels that he represents in part a people who even in their 
desolation are no unimportant element in the national life; 
who have accepted with manly sincerity the changes which the 
war has brought; who know that they have the confidence of 
the country to regain, but who are assured that, with a fuller 
and truer knowledge of their' condition, their motives, and 
theif purposes, to which it is our duty here to contribute, they 
can claim and will receive that restored trust and affection 
which can alone bind the great sections of this Republic in 
unity of spirit and in the bonds of peace — that peace which in 
these days of miserable discord almost passeth the understand- 
ing. I believe the apprehension growing out of the united 
Southern support of the Democratic party is wholly unfounded, 
and should not stand in the way of the aspirations of a great 
people for progress and reform in their Government. The 



THE SOUTH ACCEPTS THE SITUATION. 381 

idea that the South under any combination of parties will ever 
again obtain the control of this great Republic and wield its 
destinies against the will of its mighty people, is of all ideas 
the most visionary and baseless. 

Sir, if such an idea has any effect whatever with the North, 
no such hallucination inflames the imagination of the South. 
The Southern people are a prostrate people. They have been 
defeated in war, and they have been made to know and feel 
that the sacrifices, the humiliation, and helplessness of defeat are 
theirs; while the North has reaped the rich results of a victo- 
rious war, and has interfused them into the very elements of the 
national life and constitution. Their institutions, political and 
social, have been destroyed as completely as if an earthquake 
had overwhelmed them; their agricultural industries are dis- 
organized; their fertile soil sterilized by an all-devouring taxa- 
tion; their educational institutions languishing; their popula- 
tion impoverished, and so inferior in numbers as to place them 
in every department of the Government in such a hopeless 
minority that, so far from ruling the interest of other sections, 
they are impotent to protect a single interest or right of their 
own. 

Sir, even if such a dream were in their mind, the occasion 
for it is gone. The conflicts in the past grew out of questions 
connected with slavery, its area, and the maintenance of its 
constitutional right, its political privileges, and its property in- 
terests. These questions have been eliminated from the prob- 
lem of American politics, and with them have gone all the 
passions and antagonism to which they gave rise. Nor is there 
any influence or incident connected with their present condi- 
tion which makes them not fully homogeneous with the whole 
American people; nor anything, except harsh and ungracious 
adminstration, to prevent their sympathy and identity with the 
interest and destiny of the American nation. She feels that 
she must be either part of the nation, or its province; must be 
part of the Government, or held in duress under it. With her 
people national patriotism is a philosophy, a moral and polit- 
ical necessity. To obey the laws of their country and to rec- 



382 READING AND ORATORY. 

ognize its authority over themselves would be, as they well 
know, degrading to their character. As Southern men, they 
know that to keep up the high moral standard of a high-spirited 
people obedience must emanate from patriotic love and not 
from ignoble fear. Their very sectionalism, which has hither- 
to tended to insulate, now identifies them Avith the national life, 
and makes them cultivate that wider and broader patriotism 
which is coextensive with the Union. They have no aspirations 
not bounded by the horizon of that Union, no purpose adverse 
to the national instincts, no scheme that looks to the disturb- 
ance of the elective franchise as it exists in the Constitution. 

L. Q. C. LAMAR. 

Lucius Q. C. Lamar was born in Georgia, September 17, 1825, and graduated at 
Emory College, 1845; studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1847; removed to Mis- 
sissippi in 1849, and was elected Adjunct Professor Mathematics in the University of that 
State, but resigned in 1850 and returned to Georgia, where he served as a member of 
the Legislature in 1853; in 1854 he again removed to Mississippi and was elected to the 
Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses of the United States, resigning in i860 to take his 
seat in the Secession Convention; served in the Confederate Army as Colonel of Infan- 
try; in 1863, was sent on important diplomatic mission to Russia by President Davis; 
served two terms in Congress after the reconstruction of Mississippi, and in 1877 took his 
seat in U. S. Senate. He is a recognized leader in Southern politics, and is distin- 
guished for his conservative statesmanship, ability in debate, and polished oratory. 



LOVE. 

BLESSED be the God of Love for making man in his own 
image, and all nature in accord! It is love which adds 
brightness to the sunbeam, beauty and fragrance to the flower, 
symmetry to form, and harmony to sound; which deprives the 
thunder-cloud of its terrors, turns despair to hope, and takes 
the sting away from death. It gives pleasure to the toils of 
life, and always stands as the crown of their reward. Man 
aspires to be wise, admires justice and holiness, seeks after 
knowledge, and strives for power over nature, but he feels love; 
it alone can completely fill his nature, it alone of all his attributes, 
is always present, and it alone can be made nearly perfect here 



THE CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA. 383 

on earth. His wisdom may prove folly; his justice, cruelty; 
his holiness, sinful weakness; his knowledge, a vain boast; and of 
his power he may despair; but his love knows neither despair, 
cruelty, sinfulness, folly, nor vain boasting. It is always the 
very perfection of perfection; makes crooked things straight; 
rough places smooth; ugliness beautiful; stupidity intelligent; 
and even vice it often transforms to virtue. Man could neither 
bear to live, nor living bear to die without it. And when, in 
addition to his own exquisite feeling of that perfect sense, he 
knows that all of it with which another is endowed — and she 
one of the most lovely and loving of God's loving creatures — is 
bestowed upon him as its object, he feels a pride of his own 
dignity, and an appreciation of his own blessedness as a man, 
which no other contemplation of his nature can impart. 

JOHN S. HOLT. 



THE CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA- 

S PURRING onward, Captain Nolan 
Spurring furiously is seen — 
And although the road meanders; 
His no heavy steed of Flanders, 
But one fit for the commanders 
Of her Majesty the Queen. 

Halting where the noble squadrons 

Stood impatient of delay. 
Out he drew his brief despatches. 
Which their leader quickly snatches; 
At a glance their meaning catches: 

They are ordered to the fray. 

All that morning they had waited, 
As their frowning faces showed ; 
Horses stamping, riders fretting, 



384 READING AND ORATORY. 

And their teeth together setting, 
Not a single sword-blade wetting. 
As the battle ebbed and flowed. 

Now the fevered spell is broken: 
Every man feels twice as large; 
Every heart is fiercely leaping. 
As a lion roused from sleeping, 
For they know they shall be sweeping 
In a moment to the charge. 

Brightly gleam six hundred sabres. 

And the brazen trumpets ring: 
Steeds are gathered, spurs are driven. 
And the heavens wildly riven 
With a mad shout upward given,. 

Scaring vultures on the wing. 

Stern its meaning : was not Gallia 
Looking down on Albion's sons? 
In each mind this thought implanted. 
Undismayed and all undaunted. 
By the battle-fields enchanted, 
On they ride upon the guns. 

Onward, on the chargers trample. 
Quicker falls each iron heel, 

And the headlong pace grows faster; 

Noble steed and noble master. 

Rushing on to red disaster. 
Where the heavy cannons peaf. 

In the van rides Captain Nolan, 

Wide his flying tresses wave; 
And his heavy broadsword flashes,. 
As upon the foe he dashes: 
God! his face turns white as ashes,. 
He has. ridden to his grave. 



r 



THE CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA. 385 

Down he fell, prone from his saddle, 

Without motion, without breath. 
Never more at trump to waken — 
He the very first one taken 
From the bough so sorely shaken 

In the vintage-time of Death. 

In a moment, in a twinkling 

He was gathered to his rest; 
In the time for which he'd waited — 
With his gallant heart elated — 
Down went Nolan, decorated 

With a death-wound on his breast 

Comrades still are onward charging, 

He is lying on the sod; 
Onward still their steeds are rushing 
Where the shot and shell are crushing, 
From his corpse the blood is gushing. 

And his soul is with his God. 

As they spur on, what strange visions 

Flit across each rider's brain: 
Thoughts of maidens fair, of mothers, 
Friends and sisters, wives and brothers. 
Blent with images of others. 

Whom they ne'er shall see again. 

Onward still the squadrons thunder, — 
Knightly hearts were theirs, and brave; 

Men and horses, without number. 

All the furrowed ground encumber, 

Falhng fast to their last slumber, — 
Bloody slumber! bloody grave! 

Of that charge at Balaklava, 

In its chivalry sublime. 
Vivid, grand, historic pages 



386 READING AND ORATORY. 

Shall descend to future ages; 
Poets, painters, hoary sages, 
Shall record it for all time. 

Telling how those English horsemen 
Rode the Russian gunners down; 
How with ranks all torn and shattered, 
How with helmets hacked and battered, 
How with swords and arms blood-spattered 
They won honor and renown. 

'Twas "not war," but it was splendid 

As a dream of old romance; 
Thinking which their Gallic neighbors 
Thrilled to watch them at their labors 
Hewing red graves with their sabres, 
In that wonderful advance. 

Down went many a gallant soldier; 

Down went many a stout dragoon; 
Lying grim, and stark, and gory, 
On the crimson field of glory. 
Leaving us a noble story. 

And their white-cliffed home a boon. 

Full of hopes and aspirations 

Were their hearts at dawn of day; 
Now with forms all rent and broken, 
Bearing each some frightful token 
Of a scene ne'er to be spoken. 
In their silent sleep they lay. 

Here a noble charger stiffens, 
There his rider grasps the hilt 

Of his sabre, lying bloody 

By his side, upon the muddy 

Trampled ground, which, darkly ruddy, 
Shows the blood that he has spilt. 



TEXAS AND THE PRINCE OF PEACE 387 

And to-night the moon shall shudder 

As she looks down on the moor, 
Where the dead of hostile races 
Slumber, slaughtered in their places, 
All their rigid, ghastly faces 

Spattered hideously with gore. 

And the sleepers! ah, the sleepers 

Made a Westminster that day, 
'Mid the seething battle's lava! 
And each man that fell shall have a 
Proud inscription — Balak/ava, 

Which shall never fade away. 

JAMES BARRON HOPE. 

James Barron Hope, poet and journalist, is a native of Hampton, Va. He has pub- 
lished two volumes, one entitled simply, Poems, the other Leoni di Monota, and Other 
Poems. Balaklava, the most successful of his productions, was highly commended by 
the press of England, and drew from the Queen a specia.' acknowledgment. Captain 
Hope is at present editor of the Norfolk Landmark. 



TEXAS BESTOWED ON THE PRINCE OF 

PEACE. 

MORE than thirty years ago I met repeatedly in Paris a per- 
sonage very noted in European history during the early 
years of the present century, The Prince of Peace — El Pn'jicipe de 
la Paz — Don Manuel Godoy This personage said to me that his 
master, Charles IV., King of Spain, had bestowed on him the 
province of Texas, to be an apanage of the house of Godoy. 
The King had also assigned to him the young women in the 
Female Asylums of Spain to go thither — that is, to come hither 
— together with two thousand soldiers, for the settlement and 
permanent inhabitation of this our present State of Texas. 
The soldiers were designated, the transports were being got 
in readiness to sail,when the French invasion of Spain, under Na- 



388 READING AND ORATORY. 

poleon, at this moment, made the troops needed at home. The 
enterprise was arrested; the Spanish damsels were restored to 
their asylums, and the mighty events in Spain, following in 
quick succession and involving nearly all Europe, prevented it 
from being ever resumed. There appears no reason for doubt- 
ing the narrative. The whole was a fitting incident in the his- 
tory of the Spanish Court during those hideous times. 

When I used to see the Prince, then seventy-six or seventy- 
eight years old, he still exhibited traces of that beauty of An- 
tinous which, more than thirty years before, had wrought the 
infamy of the court in which he ruled, the all-powerful favorite 
of the Queen as well as of the King. He was living in very 
plain apartments, on the fifth story, in a small street near the 
boulevard. His sole means of subsistence in his age and in 
his poverty, he said to me, was five thousand francs paid to him 
annually by King Louis Phillipe — a salary he was once entitled 
to as a grand officer of the Legion of Honor. I sometimes saw 
him wrapped in a Spanish cloak, sauntering solitary on the 
boulevards, gazing at the things displayed in the shop windows. 

ASHBEL SMITH. 

AsHBEL Smith, the diplomatist of the Texas Revolution, was born in Hartford, Conn., 
1806. He graduated at Yale College, went to North Carolina, and there studied law, 
but on account of ill health abandoned it for medicine, the study of which he com- 
pleted in Paris, where he was during the last year of his stay externe in the Neckar 
Hospital. Returning to North Carolina, he practised his profession till 1836, when, in 
response to call for volunteers to oppose Santa Anna's invasion, he hastened to Texas, 
but did not arrive until after the battle of San Jacinto; was appointed Surgeon-General 
of the Texan army; and, in 1838, was one of the Commissioners who negotiated the 
first treaty of Texas with the Comanche Indians. Under President Houston's second 
administration he was Minister Plenipotentiary from the Republic of Texas to Great 
Britain and France, residing alternately in London and Paris; he also visited Rome on 
a diplomatic mission to Pope Gregory XVI. On his return from Europe he was ap- 
pointed Secretary of State under President Anson Jones, and in view of impending 
annexation, returned to Europe to close up diplomatic relations with the European pow- 
ers. While Secretary of State he negotiated a treaty with Mexico— accepted by the 
Mexican Congress — which placed Texas in the position of acknowledged independence 
before the world; this treaty was rejected by the Texas Congress, which accepted in 
preference the annexation resolutions. 

Entering the Confederate army as Captain, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel 
on the field of Shiloh, for gallantry; v/as for awhile Inspector-General of the Army in 
North Mississippi; then succeeded to the colonelcy of his regiment, the 2d Texas In- 
fantry; after the fall of Vicksburg he commanded a brigade or divison until the close 
of the war, when he was in command of the defences of Galveston. 

He long since ceased to practise mediciney^r /«_>'. The social, political, and materia) 



THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS AND PINE. 389 

questions of the day— but especiallj' education, finance, and scientific agriculture— have 
ever engaged his profoundest study, and in their solution and practical application for 
the advancement of the true interests of his State, he has been prominent, active, and suc- 
cessful. Possessing a wonderful versatility of mind, he is no less remarkable for his 
scientific attainments and linguistic accomplishments than for his political sagacity. 
Some of his scientific papers have been republished with commendation in the Euro- 
pean journals; and he has been elected a member of various learned and scientific 
bodies on both continents. During his absence as Honorary Commissioner to the 
Paris Exposition of 1878, he has been nominated State Senator. 



I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS 
AND PINE. 

I SIGH for the land of the Cypress and Pine, 
Where the jessamine blooms and the gay woodbine; 
Where the moss droops low from the green oak tree, — 
Oh! that sunbright land is the land for me! 

The snowy flower of the orange there, 
Sheds its sweet fragrance through the air; 
And the Indian rose delights to twine 
Its branches with the laughing vine. 

There the deer leaps light through the open glade, 
Or hides him far in the forest shade, 
When the woods resound in the dewy morn 
With the clang of the merry hunter's horn. 

There the humming-bird of rainbow plume, 
Hangs o'er the scarlet creeper's bloom; 
While 'midst the leaves, his varying dyes 
Sparkle like half -seen fairy eyes. 

There the echoes ring through the livelong day 
With the mock-bird's changeful roundelay; 
And at night when the scene is calm and still, 
With the moan of the plaintive whip-poor-will. 



390 READING AND ORATORY. 

Oh! I sigh for the land of the Cypress and Pine, 
Of the laurel, the rose, and the gay woodbine; 
Where the long gray moss 'decks the rugged oak tree — 
That sunbright land is the land for me. 

SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON. 

Samuel Henry Dickson, M. D., was born in Charleston, S. C, 1797. After gradu- 
ating in Yale College, and then in medicine at University of Pennsylvania, he practised 
his profession many years in his native city, and established the Medical College there. 
In 1847 he was Professor in University of New York, and after the war (having re- 
turned South and lost everything in the contest) he accepted a chair in Jefferson Medi- 
cal College, Philadelphia, which he filled until his death a few years ago. His pub- 
ished volumes have been on medicine or collateral subjects, except Essays on Slavery^ 
1845. He is said to have delivered the first temperance lecture south of Mason and 
Dixon's line. His essays on literary and scientific subjects have been numerous, and 
his occasional verses are remarkable for simple grace and true feeling. 



BOSTON LECTURE ON SLAVERY. 

THE opponents of slavery, passing by the question of ma- 
terial interests, insist that its effects on the society where 
it exists is to demoralize and enervate it, and render it inca- 
pable of advancement and a high civilization; and upon the citi- 
zen, to debase him morally and intellectually. Such is not the 
lesson taught by history, either sacred or profane, nor the ex- 
perience of the past or present. 

To the Hebrew race were committed the oracles of the Most 
High; slaveholding priests administered at His altar, and slave- 
holding prophets and patriarchs received His revelations, and 
taught them to their own, and transmitted them to all future 
generations of men. The highest forms of ancient civilization, 
and the noblest development of the individual man, are to be 
found in the ancient slaveholding commonwealths of Greece 
and Rome. In eloquence, in rhetoric, in poetry and painting, 
in architecture and sculpture, you must still go and search amid 
the wreck and ruins of their genius for the "pride of every 
model and the perfection of every master," and the language and 
literature of both, stamped with immortality, passes on to mingle 



VETO OF INTERNATIONAL R. R. BILL. 39 1 

itself with the thought and the speech of all lands and all centuries. 
Time will not allow me to multiply illustrations. That domes- 
tic slavery neither enfeebles nor deteriorates our race; that it is 
not inconsistent with the highest advancement of man and so- 
ciety, is the lesson taught by all ancient and confirmed by all 
modern history. Its effects in strengthening the attachment of 
the dominant race to liberty, was eloquently expressed by Mr. 
Burke, the most accomplished and philosophical statesman 
England ever produced. In his speech on conciliation with 
America, he uses the following strong language: "Where this 
is the case, those who are free are by far the most proud and 
jealous of their freedom. I cannot alter tlie nature of man. 
The fact is so, and these people of the Southern colonies are 
much more strongly, and with a higher and much more stub- 
born spirit, attached to liberty than those to the northward. 
Such were all the ancient commonwealths, such were our 
Gothic ancestors, and such in our day were the Poles; such 
will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves themselves. In 
such a people the haughtiness of domination combines itself 
with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible." 

ROBERT TOOMBS. 



VETO OF INTERNATIONAL R. R. BILL. 

IT is said that the people will not repudiate the bonds, if we 
will issue them — that they will pay them rather than bring 
dishonor on the State. In other words, that by a species of 
legerdemain the representatives of the people should place 
their constituents in a position where no/cfis volens — right or 
wrong — they would be compelled to pay in order to save the 
honor of the State. 

In the first place, I do not believe that any action we can 
take will control the determination of the people on this sub- 
ject; and, in the next, have no hesitation in saying that in a rep- 
resentative government such an argument should find no ad- 



392 READING AND ORATORY. 

vocates. It is precisely on this process of reasoning that this 
company sought, and the Twelfth Legislature granted the original 
subsidy; that mountains of debt have been piled on all the 
States of the South since 1865; — that the monstrous frauds on 
the State and National Government have been perpetrated 
during the past decade; that " rings" and powerful combina- 
tions composed of men of great wealth and political influence, 
by the liberal use of money and other means in the manufac- 
ture of a factitious pressure of a false clamor, of an unreal and 
fraudulent public sentiment for the occasion, have controlled 
governments and representatives against the will and interest 
of the people. It is on this argument, aided by the benefits 
and blandishments which the power of capital can control, that 
governments in these latter days are diverted from legitimate 
channels, seduced from their allegiance to the people, and sub- 
ordinated to the interests of rings, jobbers, and plunderers. 

While the great importance of settling this question is ad- 
mitted, I deem it of infinitely greater moment that it be estab- 
lished beyond question that the people of Texas can and will 
control their government against all such influences. The 
agencies which for weeks past have beleaguered this Capitol 
like an investing army, in the interest of the International Rail- 
road Company, are not those of the tax-paying people of Texas. 
Let us not mistake their clamor for the voice of our constituents. 
If these influences are once seated in power in Texas no man 
can tell if ever they will be dislodged, and a debauched govern- 
ment and plundered people will be the inevitable results. In- 
fluences like these once revelled in power in the lobbies of this 
Capitol, and the people trembled for consequences they were 
powerless to avert. The corruptions of that time are still fresh 
in our memories. The sewers of a plague-stricken city are not 
more unclean than were the channels through which the legis- 
lation of the country flowed. The brood of troubles hatched 
out during that period of corrupt lobby domination still vex 
and oppress the people; and to-day we are dealing with the chief 
among them. I ask that we draw upon our bitter experience 
of that period for wisdom to guide us to-day, and that we per- 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 393 

mit no influence, no clamor, no combination, no cunningly 
wrought delusion on the subject of State credit, and no coali- 
tion of individual and local with corporation interests, either to 
seduce or drive us into a measure which, if executed, will sorely 
oppress the general mass of the people, and, if successfully 
resisted, will cover the State with the disgrace of repudiation. 

RICHARD COKE. 

Richard Coke was born in Virgfinia, March 13, 1829, and was educated at William 
and Mary College. After studying law he emigrated to Texas in 1850; was elected Judge 
of Supreme Court of that State in 1866, but was removed next year by General Sheri- 
dan as "an impediment to Reconstruction." In 1873 he was elected Governor of Texas, 
and re-elected in 1876, resigning in 1877 to take his seat in the U. S. Senate. 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION THE ONLY SURE 
BASIS FOR CIVIL FREEDOM. 

A PURE Christian religion, the religion of the Bible, is the 
only secure basis for civil freedom. No republics except 
those founded on the Bible have ever sought to raise the masses 
from ignorance. In truth, every nation in the world at all conspic- 
uous, taking a prominent part in commerce or enterprise, is pro- 
fessedly Christian. Within Christendom may be found all that 
is valuable in art, or science, or civilization. Christianity is the 
moral force of the universe, almost miraculous in its achieve- 
ments; and this beneficent, ameliorating, civilizing power, this 
grand instrument of the world's progress, is inseparable from 
the Bible. A godless nation cannot be permanently free; but when 
God's rights are allowed, man's very soon follow. France, in 
trying to copy our example, failed to comprehend the religious 
substratum. Deluded by its vain ideas, she set reason above 
God, built temples to its worship, and caused the Bible to be 
burned by the common hangman. She abolished the Sabbath, 
decreed death an eternal sleep, rebelled against heaven, — and 
went down in a sea of blood. The republic, drunk with crime 
and infamy, staggered and reeled, and fell into the arms of mili- 



394 READING AND ORATORY. 

tary despotism. The infidel encyclopedists were the harbin- 
gers of Napoleon, crying in the blood-red streets of Paris, Pre- 
pare ye the way for a despot! As there was no love for the 
Bible, nor reverence for God, the people were necessarily inca- 
pable of a free government. 

J. L. M. CURRY. 



TINTORETTO'S LAST PAINTING. 

O BITTER, bitter truth ! I see it now. 
Heightening the lofty calmness of her face, 
Until it seems transfigured: On her brow 
The gray mists settle. I begin to trace 
The whitening circle round her lips; the fine 
Curve of the nostril pinches, . . . ah, the sign 
Indubitable ! I dare thrust aside 
No longer what ye oft in vain have tried 
To force upon my sight, that day by day 
My Venice-lily drops her leaves away. 

While I have seen no fading, — I, who should 
Have known it earliest. 

Only thirty years 
For this unfolding flush of womanhood 

To fruiten into ripeness: O, if tears 
Could bribe, how soon my harvested fourscore 

Should take the thirty's place! For I have had 
Life's large in-gathering, and I crave no more. 

But she, ... she just begins to taste how glad 
The mellower clusters are, — when see! — the woe! 
One blast of mortal ravage, and here lies 
Before my startled eyes, 
The laden vine, uprooted at a blow. 



TINTORETTO'S LAST PAINTING. 395 

My Paradiso* does not hold a face 

That is not richer through my darling's gift: 
One angel has the hushed, adoring lift 

Of her arched lids; another wears the grace 
That dimples round her flexile mouth; and one 
— The nearest to The Mother and her Son — 
Borrows the tawny glory of her hair: 

And yet, — how strange! — as full and perfect whole, 

Her form, her features, all the breathing soul 
Of her, I have not pictured otherwhere. 

Tommaso, bring my colors hither: Haste! 
We have no time to waste. 
Draw back the curtain; in the fairest light 
Set forth my easel, — I am blind to-night, 

Blind through my weeping. But I must not lose 
Even the shadow's shadow. Now they prop 

Her for the breeze: There! just as I would choose; 
They smooth the pillows. Dear Ottavia, drop 

Your Persian scarf across her couch, that so 
Its wine-red flecks may interfuse the cold 

Blanch of the linen's dreaded snow. 

Nay, — hold! 
Give her no hint; forbear to let her know 
That the old doting father fain would snatch 

This phantom from death's grip. My child! my child! 

My inmost soul rebels, unreconciled! 
Heart sinks, hand palsies, while I strive to match 

Such beatific loveliness with blot 
Of earthly color. All my tints but seem 
Ashen and muddy to reflect the gleam 

Of those celestial eyes fast-fixt on what 
Spirits alone can see. Ah! now, — she smiles — 



Tintoretto's masterpiece. 



396 READING AND ORATORY. 

Look on my canvas: if the wish beguiles 
Not judgment, I have caught a glimmer here 
Of the old shine that used to flash so clear 
Across our evening circle, — like the last 
Long sunset ray aslant our gray lagunes, 

When she would lean, with Veronese anear, 
Beside the sill, and listen to the tunes 

Of gondoliers who' neath our windows passed. 
Now softly bid Ottavia loosen out 

Her golden thridded hair; and bring a rose 
From yonder vase, and let her fingers close, 
— Poor, fragile fingers! — the green stem about. 

Yea, — so! But all is blurred through rush of tears: 

Only the vanished, mocking long ago, 
Frescoed with memories of her happy years, 

Betwixt me and the canvas seems to glow. 
And now, — and now! 

Her hair rays off, — an aureole round her brow: 

And see! Tommaso, see! I understand 

Not what I do: for, in her slackening hand, 
I've put a palm-branch where I meant the rose 

Should drop its spark of warmth the whiteness o'er; 
How wan she looks! Surely the pallor grows, — 

Nay, push the easel back, ... I can no more! 

MARGARET J. PRESTON, 



THE CENTENNIAL OF AMERICAN INDEPEND- 
ENCE. 

SHOULD any friend of this measure ask whether I favor 
a celebration of the Declaration of American Independ- 
ence, I tell him yes; but the celebration I desire to see and for 
the world to witness is far different from the one he is seeking 
to provide. He would diligently search for what at best is a 
doubtful power, and exercise it to get at the public Treasury. 



CENTENNIAL OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 397 

He would lay his hands on the money of forty million people 
without instructions as to how they wish the celebration con- 
ducted, and hand it over to a private corporation to be used 
and spent as a few privileged members may see fit. He would 
deliver over ^1,500,000 of the public money to be spent for 
one reading of the Declaration of Independence and one 
oration at one spot. He would tax the people of Georgia $45,- 
000 to be spent in Philadelphia alone, for the benefit of the 
few, when not one in one hundred of the people of that State 
will be able to visit tlie scene where their money had already 
been taken to provide a vicarious demonstration in Philadel- 
phia. He would substitute a purchased ceremony for a heart- 
felt patriotic outburst. He would set the example of the 
Government assuming control of the celebration of the Fourth 
of July, and discourage the accustomed annual celebration by 
the people. 

Such is not my idea of what the scene should be on that 
memorable day. I would have it a simultaneous movement of 
forty million people along the continent. It should begin as 
the gray dawn first lights up the cliffs of Maine, and rise and 
roll with the sun in deafening shout, until his parting smile, 
as if in sorrow at leaving a scene so happy, saddens and fades 
into the gloom of night. As the lark watching for the pur- 
pling East springs from its nest with merry note; as the mocking- 
bird rises on buoyant wing and joyously revels in the melody 
of its own song; so would I hear the children of this land, the 
future mothers and statesmen of America, as they rise on that 
morning, pour out their hearts in one universal carol. The 
husbandman should leave the field, the mechanic his bench, 
the lawyer his brief, the clergyman his study, the furnace and 
spindle hush their hum and clang, and busy commerce furl her 
sails. If American oratory has not lost its spell; if its silver 
tongue has not been enchanted into silence by the golden wand, 
the inspiration of the day and theme should kindle every habit- 
able grove with burning words. " Not in Jerusalem, nor in 
this mountain"; not in Philadelphia, nor alone in Independ- 
ence Hall, but wherever the flag of our country is given to the 



398 READING AND ORATORY. 

breeze, should Americans do honor to the day that ushered 
into being the infant Messiah of nations. Beneath our feet iu 
the Celestial Empire, in the islands of all the seas, before the 
face of kings, the scattered sentinels and disciples of freedom 
on that day should testify their faith by fitting sacrifice. 

Let this celebration be grander in moral sublimity than the cele- 
bration of the Greeks on the banks of the classic Alpheus, where 
those who were lately foes met as friends and their wrongs were 
forgotten. Let it be more joyous than the song and dance of the 
Jewish hosts on the banks of the Red Sea. Let it be freer than the 
jubilees of Israel and prouder than the proudest triumphal 
march of Roman Emperor. Thus, and only thus, can we give 
a fitting testimony to mankind of our joy over the declaration 
of our right to be free and of our admiration and love for the 
heroes by whose sacrificial blood our freedom was secured and 
constitutional government established and maintained. 

T. M. NORWOOD. 



THE SENTIMENTS OF THE SOUTH IN I860. 

THE South never has "calculated," and never will "calcu- 
late," the value of the Union. Without a trace of merce- 
nary feeling in her nature, without counting its advantages or 
disadvantages, she clings to it with filial affection as a thing to be 
reverenced, and too sacred for traffic or speculation. We are 
well aware that, by enormous concessions of territory, and by 
acquiescing in a system of unequal taxation, we have contrib- 
uted a large excess over our quota to the common stock; but 
we find our compensation in the development and prosperity of 
our common country. Whatever concerns it, or any part of it, in- 
terests us, and we have ever been willing to make any sacrifice 
short of a constitutional right. With this sentiment for the 
country and for the Union deeply rooted in the South, we con- 
template a dissolution as men contemplate the extinction of 
their long-cherished and fondest hopes. 



LET US WORK FOR THE FUTURE. 399 

But when our Northern brethren ask us to surrender slavery 
and its natural extension in territories adapted to its growth, 
they ask in the spirit of a footpad who demands your purse 
with a pistol at your breast. When they interfere with it by 
the law-making power, they exercise a function that finds no 
warrant in the Constitution. When they attempt, as they have 
attempted, to arm our slaves against us, and instigate a power- 
ful and contented people to the commission of crimes, they 
sever the bonds of Union, and drive us to seek shelter and safety 
under a separate and distinct government. We separated from 
England for the mere assertion of a right which she was willing to 
qualify or surrender, and which had never occasioned any 
actual evil. When we leave the present Union, we shall leave 
it to preserve our property from spoliation, our homesteads 
from rapine and murder. We shall stand justified in our own 
conscience and before mankind; justified as every people stand 
justified in history, who, having patiently endured injustice for 
the sake of peace, finally draw the sword for the sake of inde- 
pendence. We shall quit the Union, be that day of sorrow 
early or late, as loyal to its covenants as when first our fathers 
formed it, loving and regretting it to the last; glorying in its early 
traditions and mourning its sudden fall, ever mindful of the 
patriot friends at the North who have co-operated with us to 
maintain it, and reserving for them the places of honor around 
our altars and firesides; — but with the resolution, inflexible as 
destiny, to defend our rights in their whole extent, or perish 
with them! 

J. F. H. CLAIBORNE. 



LET us WORK FOR THE FUTURE. 

THE statesman should remember that while he is mortal, 
the State is immortal. Nothing is -yvorthy to be digni- 
fied by the name of statesmanship which simply rattles the dry 
bones of the dead past, or is bounded by the living present. 
True statesmanship contemplates the whole line of years that 



400 READING AND ORATORY. 

underlie the immortal existence of the State. In laying the 
foundation of a great cathedral, the architect considers the in- 
terests of unborn generations who shall enter its sacred courts 
to worship. Thus the Cathedral of Cologne, began in the 
twelfth century, is not yet completed. When its foundations 
were laid, it was well known that none present at the laying of 
the corner-stone would ever see raised its buttressed walls. 
They worked for the future. So it may be that we are but 
laying the foundations of the great educational structure which 
future times will complete. But because we are not to see its 
towers and turrets courting the clouds, are we to refuse to work 
on the foundation? The three million revolutionary sires and 
matrons fought the battles that bequeathed to their posterity 
the blessings of freedom. Little did they enjoy, in the unbroken 
wilderness, to compensate them for the privations they suffered. 
If it could be proven (and it cannot) that we are not getting the 
worth of our money, we are making an outlay that will increase 
the advantages of those who shall succeed us. And if future 
generations should have occasion to bless us for having pro- 
vided for their interest in advance by a wise forecasting, then 
we may be sure, by anticipation, that we have made no mistake 
by contemplating a line of years stretching beyond our own 
immediate lives and selfish concerns. 

H. A. M. HENDERSON. 



AMMONS VS. ARNOLD; 

AN ACTION FOR SLANDER. 

C"^ ENTLEMEN of the Jury: To compress within the com- 
X pass of a brief argument a case like this, in which the 
points are so many and the mass of testimony so vast, is ex- 
ceedingly difficult. But I know that after your session of five 
days in the trial of this cause you must be weary, and therefore 
I promise you as much brevity as clearness and duty to my 
client will allow. 



AMMONS VS. ARNOLD. 4OI 

And, first of all, I will say to you that counsel for the defend- 
ant have evaded — perhaps wisely — the real issue in the case. 
I will recur to it at the proper time, and face the facts upon 
which my client's case must stand or fall. 

From lawful action of the plaintiff — action commanded by 
reason, humanity, civilization, the laws of his country, and his 
duty as a good citizen — they have sought to draw an inference 
adverse to the truth of his cause. Because, when charged with 
theft, he did not fell the slanderer to the earth — because he did 
not, then and there, take the law into his own hands and seek 
reparation in the infliction of punishment on the body of the 
defendant — because he did not violate the laws of his country 
by the commission of an assault and battery, or worse 
— they argue thence his guilt and the truth of the charge. 
Heavens, this is a court of justice! Are we savages? Is it pos- 
sible that under the aegis of the Constitution, within the sacred 
precincts of a court of our country, before men sworn 
to decide according to law and evidence, beneath the 
full blaze of the civilization of the nineteenth century, the con- 
clusion of guilt can be drawn from obedience to law? Such 
enormous doctrines would overthrow the foundations of all 
government, and tear down the fair fabric of civilization itself — 
would forever banish peace and order from the land, and call in 
anarchy and violence — would whet the knife of the assassin, 
crown the bowl of the poisoner, and fill every nostril with the 
hot steam of human gore. 

No, gentlemen, the Constitution, the laws of the land, say that 
the plaintiff shall appeal to your just and equal judgment for 
his vindication. They gave this court, these jurors, his counsel 
compulsory process for the attendance of witnesses, and only 
the most honorable conclusions can be drawn from his manly 
obedience to law. He has made his appeal in peace to the laws 
for redress; — and shall he be driven hence with contumely and 
scorn because he has done so? 

The opposing counsel have sought to envelop this cause in 
an atmosphere unworthy of its solemn character. They have 
tried to overwhelm it with the mire of vituperation and abuse; 



402 READING AND ORATORY. 

have fed you on the slop and offal of distempered fancies; and 
have poured upon the plaintiff torrents of denunciation and the 
bitterest invectives. Let us, escaping, ascend the mount of 
reason, and feel the cool breezes that forever play around its 
summit. 

We are not considering common things — the dross of life. 
We are considering reputation — the immortal part of us, 
priceless — more delicate, because its essence is more subtile 
than the tint of the rose that perfumes your pathway, or than 
the first streakings of the morning light that lace the eastern sky 
when — 

" Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops." 

It is the bloom of the soul — a principle that must blast and 
blacken in the regions of the damned, or shine in the starry 
courts of Heaven amid principalities and powers, cherubim and 
seraphim, throughout ten thousand ages. 

Never has a cause been submitted to a jury of this county in 
which the consequences involved, the public interest excited, 
the manifold emotions evoked, would so inflame the imagination 
of the orator — if he were here. I know my incompetence. I know 
that the God of nature hath denied me the faculty, the power of 
utterance, to stir men's souls. Those flashing bolts of thought 
which crush and consume are not mine to launch. But while I 
have not the gift of expression, it is mine to feel in the highest 
degree all the inspirations of this momentous occasion. At such 
a time and in such a cause as this, if I were granted even a 
humble tithe of the glorious utterance of " Harry of the West," 
or of that distinguished man, your former fellow-citizen, whose 
history is inseparably interwoven with yours,— I might, under 
this exaltation of the soul, with these electric thrills of sympathy 
pouring into my heart from this great audience praying for 
my client's happy deliverance, overleap the barriers that hedge 
the spirit in, and, horsed on the fiery coursers of the imagination, 
might sail upon the bosom of the clouds, or ride upon the Avings 
of the wind. 

D. C. ALLEN. 



READING AND ORATORY. 403 



THE CAUSE OF STATE LOYALTY AT THE 
SOUTH. 

WHILE we who are the vanquished in this battle must of 
necessity leave to a calmer and wiser posterity to judge 
of the intrinsic worth of that struggle, as it bears upon the prin- 
ciples of constitutional liberty, and as it must affect the future 
history of the American people, there is one duty not 
only possible but imperative; a duty which we owe alike 
to the living and to the dead; and that is the preserva- 
tion in perpetual and tender remembrance of the lives of those 
who, to use a phrase scarcely too sacred for so unselfish a 
sacrifice, died in the hope that we might live. 

Especially is this our duty, because in the South a choice 
between the parties and principles at issue was scarcely possi- 
ble. From causes which it is exceedingly interesting to trace, 
but which I cannot now develop, the feeling of State loyalty 
had acquired throughout the South an almost fanatic intensity 
— particularly in the old Colonial States did this devotion to 
the State assume that blended character of affection and duty 
which gives in the old world such a chivalrous coloring to loy- 
alty to the Crown. The existence of large hereditary estates, 
the transmission from generation to generation of social and 
political consideration, the institution of slavery, creating of the 
whole white race a privileged class, through whom the pride and 
power of its highest representatives were naturally diffused, all 
contributed to give a peculiarly personal and family feeling to the 
ordinary relation of citizen to the commonwealth. Federal honors 
were undervalued, and even Federal power was underrated, 
except as they were reflected back from the interests and pre- 
judices of the State. 

When, therefore, by the formal and constitutional act of the 
States, secession from the Federal Government was declared in 
i860 and 186 r, it is almost impossible for any one not familiar 
with the habits and thoughts of the South to understand how 
completely the question of duty was settled for Southern men. 



404 READING AND ORATORY. 

Shrewd, practical men who had no faith in the result, old and 
eminent men who had grown gray in service under the national 
flag, had their doubts and their misgivings; but there was no 
hesitation as to what they were to do. Especially to that great 
body of men just coming into manhood, who were preparing to 
take their places as the thinkers and actors of the next genera- 
tion, was this call of the State an imperative summons. The 
fathers and mothers who had reared them, the society whose 
traditions gave both refinement and assurance to their young 
ambition, the college in which the creed of Mr. Calhoun was 
the text-book of their political studies, the friends with whom 
they planned their future, the very land they loved, dear to 
them as thoughtless boys, dearer to them as thoughtful men, 
were all impersonate, living, speaking, commanding in the State 
of which they were children. 

Never in the history of the world has there been a nobler 
response to a more thoroughly recognized duty: nowhere any- 
thing more truly glorious than this outburst of the youth and 
manhood of the South. And now that the end has come, and 
we have seen it, it seems to me, that to a man of humanity, I 
care not in what section his sympathies may have been nur- 
tured, there never has been a sadder or sublimer spectacle than 
these earnest and devoted men, their young and vigorous 
columns marching through Richmond to the Potomac, like the 
combatants of ancient Rome, beneath the imperial throne in the 
amphitheatre, and exclaiming with uplifted arms, " morituri te 
salutant !" 

WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT. 



THE SOUTH FAITHFUL TO HER DUTIES. 

I AM admonished not to tread on ground on which the 
smothered fires are not yet extinguished; but though I walk 
barefooted and blindfolded over burning ploughshares, in this 
I ought not to hesitate, for he who with a right heart bravely 



THE SOUTH FAITHFUL TO HER DUTIES. 405 

treads the path of truth and duty has nothing to fear. Yes, 
Senators, duty more sacred than Hfe commands me to ask on 
what field in the late ever-to-be-deplored war did the South 
betray anything but the highest qualities of the best of men? 
Where were the evidences of her decline and degeneracy? 
Ask your noble patriots who met her no less noble sons on a 
hundred ensanguined fields. Read the reports of your gene- 
rals and all contemporaneous history, and you will look in vain 
for but one response. I will draw no contrasts between those 
brave armies, those true, devoted men on either side. I only 
wish their great struggle had been a united effort to expand the 
area of free institutions, to extend the light of American civ- 
ilization, to enlarge and magnify all the beneficent influences 
of American liberty. While I shed tears over the loss of the 
gallant men of both armies, I rejoice in their common bravery, 
truth, fortitude, and splendid achievements, and still more in 
the fact that none but Americans could have resisted as we 
did, and that none but Americans could have persevered as 
you did; yet I but speak the simple truth before the world and 
before Heaven, when I declare that human history from the be- 
ginning has failed to furnish a brighter example of all the 
devoted qualities of soldiers' duty than was daily exhibited in 
the army of the South. I need not recall those who formed 
that glittering line of bayonets on Marye's burning hill; who 
met the red storm of blood and fire at Chancellorsville; who 
stepped like bridegrooms to a marriage-feast up the stony ridge 
at Gettysburg, and meeting death from foemen worthy of their 
steel, fell back like the sullen roar of broken waters. I need 
not recall those noble spirits who drew their expiring breath in 
the mortal trenches at Petersburg, or who bore their wasted 
forms and looked for the last time upon earth upon the bleak 
hills of Appomattox. 

No, Senators, we are worthy to be your countrymen, worthy 
to be the patriot-brothers of your own ever-glorious and hon- 
ored men who prevailed against us. Instead of carping, and 
criminating, and taunting, let us bury deep and forever every 
recollection of that war that does not revive the common honor, 



406 READING AND ORATORY. 

and courage, and Christian humanity of the North, and the 
South, and the whole American people. If there be any cloud 
upon the arms of either, thank God there is glory enough for 
the arms of both, and that glory belongs to the American peo- 
ple. Are not the victories of Pompey and Caesar the common 
renown of Rome? Are not the "red rose" and the "white 
rose" now intertwined in the crown of England's history? Is 
it indelicate for me to remind you that the noble Greeks, the 
Athenians and the Spartans, erected monuments of perishable 
wood to celebrate victories over their countrymen? They built 
them, for their triumphs over foreign foes, of enduring marble 
and brass. The brave Romans, whose conquering legions made 
the world their empire, never permitted a triumph to any victor 
in their civil wars. Those nations of antiquity would not per- 
petuate their own stripes. Shall this Christian Union be less 
magnanimous than the republics of the idolatrous ages? 

The Southern States tender you their faithful support of the 
Government; they offer you their treasure in peace, their valor 
in war, their resolution to pay their part of the national debt, 
incurred for their coercion; they desire to extend to you the 
trust and affection of warm and loyal hearts, and for all this 
they give you the pledge of an honor that was never broken. 
What more can you wish? Will you refuse these proffered 
duties; will you repel these priceless offerings; will you insult 
this generous spirit? Will you treat with incredulity and dis- 
dain these honorable conciliations? Will you return for them 
alienation, taunt, and mockery? Or will you receive them with 
just confidence, with reciprocal affection, with unreserved 
patriotism? What more do you desire? Do you hope to see 
us descend to self-abasement and self-degradation? Do you 
expect us to dishonor our history, to deny our convictions, to 
humble and debase our manhood, to forget our duty, and to 
cover our names with inexpiable shame, by false, cowardly, ser- 
vile pretences, and professions that would shock every senti- 
ment of truth in our bosoms? Let me tell you. Senators, this 
can never, never be! These proud States will not come on 
bended knees and bow their majestic forms on the steps of this 



THE MOCKING-BIRD IN THE JASMINE VINE. 407 

Capitol, mortified, humiliated, prostrated in the dust. Better, 
a thousand times better, that the stars on the flag of the Re- 
public which bear the names of Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, be blotted out forever, like the lost Pleiad, 
from the constellation, than become pale and feeble satellites 
to represent dishonored and degraded sisters! 

MATT. W. RANSOM. 



THE MOCKING-BIRD IN THE JASMINE VINE. 

OF all the woodland flowers of earlier Spring, 
These golden jasmines, each an air-hung bower, 
Meet for the Queen of Fairies' tiring hour. 
Seem loveliest and most fair in blossoming; — 
How yonder mock-bird thrills his fervid wing 
And long, lithe throat, where twinkling flower on flower 
Rains the globed dewdrops down, a diamond shower. 
O'er his brown head, poised as in act to sing; — 
Lo ! the swift sunshine floods the flowery urns. 
Girding their delicate gold with matchless light. 
Till the blent life of bough, leaf, blossom, burns; 
Then, then outbursts the mock-bird clear and loud, 
Half-drunk with perfume, veiled by radiance bright, — 
A star of music in a fiery cloud! 

PAUL H. HAYNE. 



